Midsummer Nights Dream - Children's theatre

Children's Theatre is a type of theatre that bases its production for an audience of families and children usually under the age of 12. It's main criteria is to educate children in a certain subject which the play is about and also to entertain them through slapstick comedy and large theatrical dances and songs. children's theatre has become extremely popular that some children's TV programmes have gone on to become theatre productions so that they can enhance the children's enjoyment of the favourite TV programmes.

There are many elements to children's theatre and they can also be found in children's TV programmes as well. For example in the TV programme Balamory uses elements such as ...
. Catchy songs to explain different themes
. Interesting names such as Miss Hoolie
. Charming accents for different characters such as spencer the painter was an American
. Colour matching for each character
. Sound effects
. Facial expressions
. Audience interactions
. And many more
Here is a link to a song that has nearly every element in it from Balamory
https://youtu.be/FlhPre4j1ss

In our production we also use these elements as well

• Catchy songs - we have 7 songs in our play that each describe some kind of element to the play for example the song "scene change" explains to the children what a scene change in the theatre is and also what types of set will be used in the scene.
• Interesting names - since our play is Shakespearean it will already have interesting names such as Lysander and Hippolyta but we also have added characters such as Spark and Gaffer which relate to their jobs as the are theatre technicians.
• Charming accents - in our production we have made it so only the mechanicals have accents as they are meant to be silly characters so in one cast the character Snout has a lisp but in the other cast he has a very deep and bored emotion to his voice.
• Colour matching - for our Athenian characters they will all be in white togas however for each of the couples that end up together they shall have a matching fabric that will show the audience who they are meant to be with.
• Sound effects - we use some sound effects for magic but we also have the characters Sparks and gaffer make some of the sound effects with their mouths like the trumpets that wake up the lovers.
• Facial expressions - since this used in all children's theatre productions we decided to use this to help explain some of the complicated emotions of the play and also to make the characters funnier to the children they will over exsagerate their facial expressions.
• Audience interaction - we use this throughout the play especially the characters spark, gaffer and Shakespeare. At one point Sparks and gaffer get children up from the audience to be fairies for queen Titania and they get to do a dance around the donkey.