As part of understanding more about this process, I was given the task of researching what theatre in education is and if there are any examples of companies that are experienced in touring TIE that we could look into whilst building our own theatre company. Theatre in education is a piece that is educational in some way and can assist the curriculum, it must be interactive and memorable to the audience and can be taught in institutes such as schools, community centres or hospitals. An educational theatre piece can range in different themes depending on the age group, for example. subjects such as alcoholism and gang violence is more appropriate for secondary school or college students, whereas the subject of community can be shown to a younger audience. To create a good educational theatre piece, the subject needs to be presented in a fun, engaging story and the company need to be creative and think outside the box with ideas so that it's original and the audience, especially if they're a younger age, need to be kept intrigued throughout. The message of the piece must be clear and direct, and each moment of the story needs to be informative, so each audience member leaves the performance having learnt a lot.
I researched a few different theatre companies that specialise in TIE, and looking at a few of them could help us make our piece stronger and more engaging to the children. I found a list of Groupia's 27 best educational theatre companies, and they all look at different themes and support different charities that relate to the show they are performing, and the main one that caught my eye was Solomon Theatre Company as they have a lot of experience. They are best known for touring their range of educational theatre pieces all over the country, and the company's aim is to "appropriately deliver performances that focus on current and hard hitting issues". Their productions are usually 1 hour long and focus on a range of different topics for different age ranges, such as:
Key Stage 2 - knife safety
Key Stage 3 - alcohol, drugs, mental health issues and social media
Key Stage 4 - post school decisions, relationships, knife crime
Higher Education - drink spiking
Solomon Theatre Company are currently the only educational theatre company that offer one hour long workshops after each performance they do which aim to teach the students about the chosen subject more and clear up any questions or thoughts they may have on the subject in hand, and provide help if any of the students or teachers want to know where to find it. The company is built around mostly young people and the experiences they have been through, and the company work together to teach what they would have liked to be taught when they were that age, which I think is a great starting point for us to come up with a concept for our piece. Solomon Theatre also work with different charities, local councils and the police to make their theatre as informative as possible and it gives the company the opportunity to bust any myths whilst rehearsing their piece so there's clarity to the audience. I think Solomon Theatre Company are great to look up to when preparing our own TIE tour and they give good examples of what subjects would be right for our chosen age group, and it would be good to see if we could look at some videos of their previous productions as inspiration for our own theatre piece.
Another theatre company I was intrigued by was Hobgoblin Theatre Company as they perform to a similar age group to us and the themes and ideas of their shows are like what we want to create this term. All of the shows they create are tailored to the current curriculum for each year group, and all of their performances are performed in a panto - style piece of theatre so all of the kids are engaged and the actors interact and break the fourth wall for most of the piece so the kids are involved as much as possible, which I think we need to look at as our show doesn't contain many moments that are interactive and that's a big thing we need to work on during rehearsals. An idea that really intrigued me when looking into Hobgoblin was their 'Play In A Day' idea, where they get the children involved by playing drama games and activities based on the school's chosen time period, e.g. the great fire of London or the gunpowder plot. The company spend the day teaching the children about these time periods through letting the children act through it and experience what it was like to be there through different drama games, therefore they are knowledgeable in their chosen subject but they're learning in an interactive and exciting way. I think we should look at this idea and take some inspiration from it when planning our workshop, as i think it would be nice to take the children through some drama games but they should relate to nature and the environment in some way, it'll be nice to keep educating the kids about the importance of nature through some fun and interactive games.
I've learnt so much about TIE this week and I didn't realise how many theatre companies perform this style until I saw the list of the best ones. I think there's plenty to take away from researching these companies as they are share many similarities but there's things they do different, and I think it's important for us to look at how to keep the children engaged and make our show as informative and clear as possible, but showcase this information in our own way. I would love to try and see a few moments from some of the shows I've spoken about to give us an idea of what we could improve during the rehearsal period and how we could work to make the audience more involved at some moments!
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