Category: Children’s Theatre

Francois Theron, spirit of a great heart, bringer of magic to children

“MY HEART IS in every single show. Making children laugh makes me remember why I do what I do. It is the sound of the joy in this theatre that turns it into a haven,” children’s theatre guru Francois Theron told My View, in an interview some months […]

How to know your worth

WHEN YOU’RE REALLY little, it seems as though everyone around you has stuff to do and responsibilities to uphold, and because you’re only little, you want to do what everyone else is doing, but you can’t. And you’re bored.  And you think you’re not good enough. Meet Manie […]

Incendiary youth: SA style

A WHITE HIGH school girl lies on her belly on a school bench to read a spot of King Lear as she munches on an apple.  There’s a sense of ‘how things should be’ in everything from her school uniform to her engagement with what is obviously homework. […]

My African queen

THERE’S NOTHING QUITE like a foray with the world’s most famous illicit lovers, told by young voices to young audiences. It’s like being witness to the passing on of the baton to another generation of theatre makers and it might give you goosebumps, when you see Shakespeare’s Antony […]

Pixie dust and make believe

ARE THERE STILL children in this world who make forts out of blankets and cushions, from which they conduct complex battles and adventures? Do children in this day and age still go on wild adventures in their own back yards, where they lie on their backs and peer […]

Scrooge! Glorious Scrooge!

WHAT DO YOU do with a fine and classical tale of Christmas told in Dickensian language, if you want to add a bit of sprite to its shenanigans and a bit of verve to your audience engagement? That’s easy. You Seussify it. So says American theatre-maker Peter Bloedel […]

From the mouths of babes

WHEN YOU KNOW there are children in the cast of a staged work, you instinctively lower the parameters of your expectations. They’re not professionals, after all. Theatre’s a difficult thing to do, if you’re a child. And it’s a truism that the fact of children on stage means […]