The Importance of Being Earnest: a guide for first-timers If you’ve never read or seen The Importance of Being Earnest, you’re in for one of the great theatrical pleasures. Oscar Wilde’s most celebrated comedy is a play that makes everything look effortless — the wit flows so naturally, the plot spins so elegantly, and the […]
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Why Much Ado About Nothing is Shakespeare’s funniest play Ask people to name a Shakespeare comedy and you’ll most often get A Midsummer Night’s Dream, or perhaps Twelfth Night. Much Ado About Nothing tends to be the answer of people who’ve actually seen it performed — because once you’ve watched it done well, it lodges
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The psychology of a puppet: why we believe in something we know isn’t real Here is something strange. You are sitting in a theatre, or around a kitchen table, watching a small figure made of wood, fabric, and paint. You know perfectly well that it is made of wood, fabric, and paint. You can see,
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Hands, strings, and shadows: a guide to the world’s great puppetry traditions Of all the theatrical arts, puppetry may be the most universal. Every culture on earth, as far as we know, has developed some form of it. From the shadow screens of Java to the glove stages of Taiwan, from the string theatres of
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A interesting video on Bodehi can be found at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3l9hhPPegkU&list=WL&index=2 Bodehi: the little theatre that carries a nation’s voice Imagine a theatre so small that the entire stage fits in the crook of a puppeteer’s arm — and yet so powerful that when it first appeared on television, the streets of Taiwan emptied. Adults abandoned
Adaption and Creation: Giving life to old stories or how writers have always borrowed from the past There is a persistent myth about creativity — that the truly original artist conjures something from nothing, that the great writer sits down with a blank page and, through the pure force of genius, produces something the world
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Why every school should teach drama Drama is one of the first subjects to face the cut when school budgets tighten. It’s seen as a luxury — a nice-to-have for children who are naturally theatrical, but not a core part of the curriculum that every child needs. This view is mistaken, and the evidence against
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10 Creative drama activities you can do at home You don’t need a stage, a spotlight, or a drama teacher to bring the magic of theatre into your home. Some of the most valuable dramatic play happens at the kitchen table, in the living room, or out in the garden — with nothing more than
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Using storytelling to develop empathy Ask any teacher what quality they most want to develop in their students, and empathy will be near the top of the list every time. The ability to understand how another person feels — to genuinely inhabit another perspective, even briefly — is foundational not just to kindness, but to
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How theatre builds confidence in teenagers Every parent knows the feeling. You’re watching your child hang back at the edge of a group, unsure of themselves, waiting to be invited in rather than striding forward. You want to help, but you know that confidence isn’t something you can simply hand over. It has to be
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