Dinky Episode 6: Elements of Drama

STEPHEN FALA: I’m Stephen Fala, and you’re listening to Pipe and Drape the only podcast that spotlights the creative minds behind the theatre for young audiences industry.

[The Dinky Pipe and Drape theme plays.] 

Back from the dead: it’s that dramatic theory lecture you probably forgot about. In this sixth dinky episode I’m applying the six Aristotelean elements of drama to theatre for young audiences. Thank you for listening today.

According to Aristotle’s Poetics, quality drama was built upon the following six elements in this order:

1. Plot
2. Character
3. Theme, or Thought
4. Language
5. Rhythm, or Music
6. Spectacle

Through my experience, reading, and zero scientific research, I have found that the six Aristotelean elements of drama apply to theatre for young audiences in this order:

1. Theme/Thought
2. Plot
3. Spectacle
4. Rhythm/Music
5. Character
6. Language

The discrepancy is a direct result of the target audience. Adults have many experiences  and encounters which they can endow into a character, place, and situation they see on stage. Children have not been around long enough to have a catalogue of memories to fill in these kinds of details. This difference shapes the development and presentation of theatre for young audiences.

Theme is the first element of focus in developing and executing theatre for young audiences for the reason that children are unfamiliar with the basic construction of society and humanity. Many TYA pieces happen within the walls of schools, and most schools will only bring theatre to their students if the piece has some kinds of blatant educational value that aligns with the curriculum. Theatre for young audiences pieces are often seen as teaching tools for schools rather than entertainment for entertainment’s sake, and the fleshing out of fundamental principles of humanity is essentially “education.” A play for young audiences with the theme of honesty must carve out time in the narrative to dissect what behavior is honest vs dishonest and why this theme is valuable. If the theme of honesty was at the forefront of storytelling for adults, they would be bored. Adults have been on earth for so long and seen the outcome of lies and deception. But since kids are new people, basic themes like this are mind-blowing and therefore must be the priority in story-telling.

In a TYA piece about honesty, the first three quarters of the plot arc may be as simple as “Denise took two cookies instead of one, lied to her uncle about it, and now her uncle is late for his fancy business dinner reservation because he’s searching the house for cookies and Denise feels bad.” In order to grip an experienced adult’s attention with a piece about honesty, the plot arc for Denise and her uncle would require juicy twists, threats, and a corrupt legal system because we crave that complexity and you might have guessed I recently binged American Crime Story.

Visual and audible spectacle keep children engaged and fuel the story because children’s vocabulary and understanding of symbolism are not as developed as a young adults’.
The rhythm/musicality of TYA is usually brighter because hello it’s kids we’re not doing Sweeney Todd here. The up-beat rhythm of the dialogue and literal music in the piece helps to carry the plot the because music, tone, and rhythm—that’s a language almost everyone can understand, regardless of speech comprehension skills. I will get to this in a second but in the context of TYA, the element of music is basically the same category as the element of spectacle and to quote Elle Woods at the end of Legally Blonde “no offense to Aristotle.” 

These stories would be almost nothing without the characters in them, but character falls this low on the scale because, due to the time constraints of most children’s theatre (60 minutes), characters are usually written into an easily digestible archetype. From the perspective of written dialogue, there isn’t time for exposition and backstory or more than a few character quirks. I’m gonna circle back to this as well, I promise.

Language is at the bottom of this list because, as mentioned before, young minds are still learning how to use and digest verbal communication, so while it is important, there is a good reason why Shakespeare and Sondheim aren’t presented to seven year olds. 

As an actor/puppeteer/stagehand multi-hyphenate, two of these six elements are within my direct control: character and spectacle. Most TYA pieces run under an hour. Since the short script does not allot room for nuanced character history or quirks in the dialogue, it is largely up to the actor and design team to visually and vocally flesh out these characters that often fall into an easily recognizable archetype. For example, I did a TYA show where I played a kid dressed as a pirate. No where in the script was it mentioned that my character likes pirates: no  pirate-isms in his lines, stage directions, lyrics, or orchestration suggested that my character played dress-up. The team decided that he did, and this shaped who my character was besides just the stereotypical Hyper Kid, which is how he was written.
Creative teams look for thinking, flexible actors who are able to fill out these types. This effort of this creative team matched the belief I’ve always had: regardless of appearance and vocal range, every actor has the capacity to play any role, and the interpretation of the script is a collaborative effort of the artists in front of and behind the table.

In my theatre for young audiences experience I got to be more creative with character interpretation and movement than I did in reincarnations of popular adult musicals. I’ve found that many shows in the world of mainstream musical theatre and dance recycle the original blocking, choreography, and casting. Certain characters are expected to look, act, and sound a specific way because the adult audience sees certain casting and creative choices as tradition. These tend to live in the world of “tell me where to stand and what to say and how to feel about it” and require a different kind of work for my actor brain.

[Richard Gere begins to sing Kander and Ebb's “Razzle Dazzle”.]

Spectacle does not necessarily mean dazzle. Not every show needs fireworks, an LED wall, full rock band orchestrations, and rotating platforms to effectively engage a young audience with its story. Spectacle can be in the creative staging, object movement (this covers puppetry as well as the way actors endow props with properties), and even the acting style itself (like mask, Lecoq, or Chekhov before the actor’s secret part). Spectacle, from the creator’s standpoint, is how to work with what you’ve got. No one is expecting pyrotechnics in a show in a gymnasium. What kids may lack in verbal communication they make up for in imagination and compromise. If a character throws blue confetti and calls it rain, the kids will be in it. They’re not going to hallucinate and see it as an actual rainstorm, a child’s imagination is not the same as an LSD trip, but kids will accept it as the truth in the moment without question because their suspension of disbelief is much purer than an adults. If an adult threw confetti at the end of Singing in the Rain, the audience would recognize it as rain but question the symbolism behind the confetti and comment on its artfulness. Kids will just say “ok that’s rain and then what?”

[Pipe and Drape theme plays.]

You can join the conversation about theatre for young audiences and find more Pipe and Drape content including photos, quotes, and TYA news on Instagram @PipeAndDrapeStories. And please be sure to rate and review Pipe and Drape wherever you listen to podcasts! Each star given or review submitted helps future listeners to find the show. Be sure to tune in every other Tuesday to hear theatre for young audiences creatives share their pipe and drape stories. Pipe and Drape is created and hosted by Stephen Fala and distributed by Anchor. Artwork for Pipe and Drape was created by Stephen Gordon and music was composed by Stephen Fala. Thank you for listening with me today. 

Read Aristotle's Poetics

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Host: Stephen Fala

Artwork: Stephen Gordon