Customer Reviews

Theatre for Children: A Guide to Writing, Adapting, Directing, and Acting

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Excellent book! Gives real specifics about playwriting for children, i.e., must have lots of action, lots of "suddenlies", clearly defined characters, etc. Also, how to incorporate audience participation. I was so inspired by Wood's book that I ordered his musicals from Samuel French and directed "Hijack Over Hygenia" for our elementary school production. He is far and away better than most of the stuff you find for children's productions. Since he has experience in writing, directing and acting these plays and musicals (he's written 40!), he brings tons of examples into his book. He's good, he's funny, and children respond to his material. Good section on writing a play snopysis before you write any dialogue. Here's a little dialogue: Rupert: Hello, Squirrel. How are you? Squirrel: Fed up. Rupert: Fed up? Squirrel: Me nose is froze, me teeth are chatter-chattering, me paws are freezing and I keep sneezing. Atishoo! Rupert: (handing her a hanky) Use my hanky. Squirrel: A hanky! Thankee! (She plows loudly into the hanky held by Rupert).

Who is David Wood? "National Children's Dramatist" or not, I'd never heard of him. But I decided to give "Theatre for Children" a shot based on its subtitle (A Guide to Writing, Directing, and Acting) and positive reader reviews. I was looking for a book that would give me basic tips on getting started and avoiding the pitfalls of writing stage plays for children. There is that sort of information buried in "Theatre for Children", but unfortunately the reader has to wade through such a relentlessly pounding sea of personal anecdotes and name dropping (again, mostly of Mr. Wood's own works and of other people I'd never heard of) that one's ability to salvage such practical information is called into question. This is not a beginner's guide to children's theater, but rather a professional memoir thinly disguised as a "how to" book. The writing style is dense and stuffy -- not "highly readable" as claimed in the cover blurb.

If this book wasn't so darned expensive, I'd be tempted to let it slide. ...(!) I felt I had to give fair warning.

Walter Piston is a composer, but in his music theory textbook, he can bring in samples from the work of other composers. Why, then, can't David Wood bring in samples from the work of other playwrights?

Incidentally, don't buy this book if you are interested in theatre for children as actors. This book is about theatre for children as spectators.

I love this book. I have written several children's shows for our local children's theatre, and reading over David Wood's text only helped me improve my scripts and fed my imagination. Yes, there are sections that I scimmed through, but most of it was very helpful. I highly recommend it.

This book is about two times the thickness it should be - the majority of the book is personal recounts of shows the author has directed or in which he has had a hand, and it ends up being a constant self-citing. The book imparts some information about theatre for young audiences, and it is indeed informative, but it certainly takes a measured amount of digging.

Also, as I was asked to obtain this book as a text book, I was somewhat disappointed that the book is not indexed. But no matter - the book will teach you a thing or two about theatre for young audiences, and it will not cost you an arm and a leg, either.

I ordered this book to be used as a textbook for a class on children's theatre (adults acting for audiences of children), and have found it to be very helpful from an acting standpoint. It is written by a British children's playwright, and consequently has a few unfamiliar terms, but most are contextually clear. The author writes like he is THE expert on plays for young audiences (which can be slightly annoying), but the useful information is worth it. He looks at every aspect of children's theatre - design, directing, acting, writing/adapting, even producing - which makes it a good all-around book and single source.

This is really great book to understand the aspects of childrens' theatre that may not be obvious to most. While many think of childrens theatre as (as I like to call it) puppet, marionets and cartoon figures, children can and do appreciate the classics and original theatre with appropriate plot development, reasonable character development, and a number of subplots.

This book simple and impressively breaks out a perfect approach to develop childrens theatre. I especially like the sections on writing or adapting to suit the children and youth. It covers most everything you need to set up a theatre if you were interested in starting out or to add a childrens/youth program to an established audult theatre.

I found the book to be essential to anyone who wants to go into playwriting whether or not Children's Theatre would be your major. It is clearly written, easy (and enjoyable) to read and just a great tool and reference.

A must-read for anyone in children's theater. David Wood is a genius