“Using examples from the class exercises, rehearsal process and group performance, critically evaluate your own piece of theatre-in-education in r...

Helen Nicholson expressed that ‘T.I.E’s primary objective was to use theatre as a tool to explore ideas, feelings and values’ titling the medium as the ‘Theatre of ideas’ (2009, p24). It is within this sentiment in which our group formed its key intentions for our piece. As a company, our objective was to focus on children’s emotional response to a story based performance of T.I.E. Due to the educational aspect of T.I.E we decided upon the historical story of Pocahontas, allowing the group to retell and alter the well-known animated Disney film with an additional historical feature. The group designed and collaborated the performance to concentrate on the underlying issue of identity and to make the audience question, what it is that makes each person an individual? Pocahontas is forced to choose between her family home and a new life in England with her partner John Smith, and it is through this dilemma in which the group directed the overall performance. Desiring to create a ‘hybrid’ (Wooster, 2007, p1) piece of theatre, the group wished to include both historical and issue based techniques within the story, thus causing the children to think critically about the piece with both factual and emotional arguments. Throughout this essay I will examine the development process within our rehearsals and the group’s use of audience participation through different Theatre and Education techniques, in order to achieve our company’s aims.

Anthony Jackson states that when forming a piece of T.I.E, the first questions asked should be, ‘who is it for? And what does it say and do?’ (2007, p57), equating the group to determine that the performance was to be aimed towards lower key stage 2 pupils and also that we wished the piece to be an info...

... middle of paper ...

...chieve our company aims of creating an intellectually stimulation and enjoyable performance. The combination of thorough historical research and several T.I.E methods supported the performance, allowing us to build upon a well structure factual foundation. We found that our work was most successful when including an element of audience participation and thus made the creative decision to involve and connect with the audience for the whole show. This was highlighted through the issue of identity which was placed underneath every scene and activity of the piece and most effectively demonstrated within the two separate name sections, illustrating the key message of the performance, that giving up ones identity is not an easy thing to do. We wanted our audience to question what makes Pocahontas who she is and thus lead them to contemplate their own personal identity.