Creating and critiquing children’s theatre

Other than an awareness of the audience’s age, is there any difference in how theatre-makers and theatre critics approach work for young people?
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Patch Theatre’s Me and My Shadow. Image via www.lmnop.com.au

For many theatre-makers, creating work for young people, whether for pre-schoolers or teenagers, requires a different approach than when creating work for adult audiences.  

‘Often the methodology in making it [involves] working with young people in order to do that sort of playback – what’s working for you? Does this sound authentic, do you believe these characters, does the story engage you? Not always but a lot of the time that’s what happens,’ said arts education consultant Meg Upton.

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Richard Watts is ArtsHub's National Performing Arts Editor; he also presents the weekly program SmartArts on Three Triple R FM, and serves as the Chair of La Mama Theatre's volunteer Committee of Management. Richard is a life member of the Melbourne Queer Film Festival, and was awarded the status of Melbourne Fringe Living Legend in 2017. In 2020 he was awarded the Sidney Myer Performing Arts Awards' Facilitator's Prize. Most recently, Richard was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Green Room Awards Association in June 2021. Follow him on Twitter: @richardthewatts