Kids are
Your Best Source of Creative Ideas
Stumped for ideas? Ask
your kids, it’s not cheating
Let your students help with ideas for set,
costumes and even blocking!
Sometimes during after-school rehearsals your
head goes – uh, duh&ldots; Your lead character looks at
you for direction and your ideas just aren’t there. Why
not ask the kids to help you out? When you hit a low tide in
the artistic flow, look around! You have lots of
imaginative minds just waiting for a chance to share! Ask for
their ideas!
Teachers often call me and want to know if the
School Play Package includes lots of costume ideas. I always
answer, yes, of course! But I always add that the kids who are
actually playing the roles are your best source of ideas.
Kids are
Your Best Source of Creative Ideas!
What can be more fun than playing pirates?
These kids love ArtReach's TREASURE
ISLAND: YOUNG PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN
Garden Island School, Hawaii,
Peggy Ellenburg Director
As soon as the students have had a chance to
read the script and their parts, take a few moments to speak to each
child and coax out whatever visual mental images they may have of
their character. Often they will think of things that are
around their house like hats in a closet or keepsakes in the attic or
garage. Ask them to describe what they are thinking of and have
them simply ask a parent if they can wear it during the show.
Ask also if the object can be embellished with sparkly art supplies
to jazz it up for the stage. This makes your life so much
easier and it gives kids a chance to do more than just perform.
After all, costume design is a creative part of the process.
Why just assign this fun, artistic adventure to
their parents or volunteers to sew on a sewing machine? Let the
kids create their characters in every way and they will feel much
more invested in their performance. Active participation in
every artistic decision will give your kids a deeper experience and
yield a more expressive performance.
Letting kids decide takes the pressure off of
you and makes your job a joy!
ArtReach
Halloween Plays are for Kids
How to Minimize the Scary and
Maximize the Fun
If you are of a certain age you may remember
the first time you saw the movie, The Exorcist. That movie and
Hitchcock’s Psycho scared the bee-jeebies out of me when I was a
preteen. I remember how hard it was to turn out the lights at
night for fear of demons and crazies in the shadowy corners.
We all mature at a different pace. For
me, it was quite a while before I could watch a scary movie and
realize it was just make believe, therefore not actually something to
be afraid of. So it’s tricky when producing Halloween
plays for kids. Just how scary should it be?
The
Legend of Sleepy Hollow takes its cue from Washington
Irving’s original work. Give that story a close reading
and you will see that Irving meant the whole thing to be hilarious,
not terrifying. The comedy comes from Ichabod’s fear of
ghosts and never tries to frighten the reader. In
ArtReach’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow your young audience will
scream at the first sight of the Headless Horseman and then laugh
their heads off at Ichabod’s reaction.
We offer the life of Edgar Allan Poe in the
play Poe! Poe! Poe!
Since it is offered as reader’s theatre, this play emphasizes
the literature and life of this great American writer.
Though stories such as the Masque of the Red Death are dark, quite
dark, the audience is left with an appreciation of the writing, not
the scariness of the story.
In our
newest Halloween play, Kid Frankenstein,
Frankie and Irving are science nerds who have an unusual idea for
the upcoming Science Fair. When Doctor Frankenstein's ancient
secret book arrives from Transylvania, the friends are whisked into a
sci-fi fantasy of time-warped, weirdly scary and lively adventure.
However the kids feel about scary movies these
days, ArtReach’s Halloween plays are perfect choices for young audiences.
How to
Dress Your Dragon
Creative tips on how to make a fun
dragon costume.
There
are many dragons in our culture. You can find them in hundreds
of medieval paintings that depict the age-old myth of ‘St.
George and the Dragon’. You can find them in old and new
children’s books. You can even find them on the Disney
Channel and in the movies!
Here are some excitingly clever costumes that
recently graced the stages of The Rose Children’s Theatre in
Eugene, OR, and Bremerton Community Theatre Jr. in Washington State!
Train
your dragon in three easy steps!
Wonderful Elaborate Dragon Costumes
It’s a great idea to leave the actor’s
face open to the audience. Seeing both faces, the audience
will quickly meld the two giving you the best of both worlds: A
dragon face and the human expressions of your young performer.
Also, don’t forget your poor sweating performer – make the
costume as comfortable as possible.
Don’t let dressing your dragon scare you
away from presenting this lovable beast on your stage! You will
be surprised how effective a simple headpiece and tail can be.
Here are some examples of simple costumes that will serve beautifully
for comic and informal performances:
A little work can go a long way for clever performers!
Never forget to talk to your actor when making
costume decisions. You’ll be surprised how many ideas they
already have in their eager, creative heads! They may actually
know of something at home that they can fashion into a costume.
That makes it clever, easy and wonderful fun for your young cast!
How to
Create Amazing Costumes Kids Love to Wear
Let your all-kids cast do the
creative work for you
We love all the great costume ideas we’ve
seen lately, especially for our new Christmas Musical, THE
VELVETEEN RABBIT. Check out Robbie Robot on below on the right.
