Child Actors in Theater

Traditionally, children’s theatre produced by adults for children, or in another variant, children act in school plays in front of schoolmates and parents putting on plays written by adults or conceived by teachers. Seen in this way, children’s theatre in school is traditionally an opportunity for education, reception, and reproduction of texts belonging to the classical educational canon but at the same time constituting a space that creates the opportunity to establish collective experiences and make them transferable.

In the past 15 years, a number of groups have adopted an unusual third approach by developing a play professionally ‘with’ children ‘as’ children ‘for’ adults. This entry discusses works belonging to the latter, participative forms of contemporary [Page 198]children’s theatre, in which children perform as actors in ...