Teaching devising for young audiences
Author
Faculty Advisor
Date
2024
Keywords
devising, higher education, performing arts, young audiences
Abstract (summary)
Devising in a post-secondary context offers the appeal of exploring ideas, issues and images that resonate with the creators. Yet, the practice of developing work for young audiences requires the student devisors to think and create for an audience that is clearly not them. But who are they? What matters to this audience? Of course, instructors who teach devising for young audiences facilitate a creative process to make a piece that draws from their students’ skills and knowledge, but experience shows them that, all too often, their students’ beliefs about children, and about theatre made for them, are limiting if not actually wrong. Thus, the process of creating work that is meaningful for young audiences – and also, for the creators – involves encouraging the student devisors to unlearn some of their assumptions about young people, and about the process of creating work for young audiences – which they generally imagine is simpler and easier than creating work for adults.
Publication Information
Fitzsimmons Frey, H. (2024) Teaching Devising for Young Audiences. In H. Fitzsimmons Frey, N. Hyland, & J. McKinnon (Eds.), Off Book: Devised Performance and Higher Education (Ch. 7, pp 102-118). Intellect, UK.
DOI
Notes
Item Type
Book Chapter
Language
Rights
All Rights Reserved