4,500 pupils treated to theatrical extravaganza

Some 4,500 primary school pupils from state, Church and independent schools were this week treated to an extravaganza of children's theatre put up at the university by student teachers.

The fourth-year B.Ed. (Hons) students, from the Department of Primary Education, gave two performances of each of five productions over three days as part of events being held to mark the 25th anniversary of the Faculty of Education.

The students had been working on the shows for months, gaining unique experience related to their teaching career.

And the pupils who attended the shows loved every minute, coming away with some thrilling memories and perhaps the beginning of an enduring interest in theatre.

The project was part of a credit integrating drama, art, music and movement/ dance. The course designer, Isabelle Gatt, the only full-time lecturer in creative and expressive arts, coordinated the project.

The performances consisted of four musicals and a collective creation: Il-Ggant l-Egoist, Viva l-Lotterija, The Pied Piper, L-Avventura fil-Foresta and The Secret Garden.

The student teachers were put in charge of all that a performance involves, such as adapting scripts, writing lyrics to the music of popular songs, creating props and directing the play. In the collective creation, which was based on a combination of fairy tales, they were also responsible for writing an original script.

Each performance was under the guidance of well-known children's theatre practitioners: Carmel Aquilina, Mario Azzopardi, Josette Ciappara, Isabelle Gatt and Lorrane Vella. Ms Moira Azzopardi Barbieri helped out with the music.

"One must realise that most of these students training to be teachers had no experience in that they had never been involved in theatre, not even when they were at school," said Ms Gatt in an interview.

"Their initial feelings towards this project ranged from excitement, thrill and motivation to utter reluctance and even fear. Now I think they would define it as a most rewarding learning experience."

Ms Gatt believes credits in the arts and participation in such projects is what facilitates student teachers' holistic development and gives them an appreciation of the pedagogic potential of the arts.

"Theatre in particular works this way. To start with all participants are required to work together for long hours. Everybody needed to pull their weight and worked with commitment for this project. Some groups even rehearsed week-ends and met during the Easter holidays. It is not easy to get a group of 25 working together; most of these students hardly knew each other after four years because they were such a big group.

"I would say that the students with the most engaging role were those who took on the direction because besides taking care of the creative aspect they also learnt much about management. They were dealing with peers so this made it doubly difficult for them.

"They had their moments of frustration when they would come to me and confide their doubts about succeeding in pulling through but they overcame such moments and I think they are wiser for the experience."

As for the young audience, whose ages ranged from three to 10, Ms Gatt said it was nothing new to say that Malta's children needed to be exposed to theatre designed specifically for them.

"The fact that these productions were overbooked by 1,500 children is proof of this and also evidence that school principals understand the need for children to go to the theatre." It was not that no children's theatre was taking place, she said, pointing to the work being done by the Education Division's Drama Unit as well as drama and dance schools.

"Yet children need to have more opportunities to go to the theatre. It is when these performances are open to school children that we make sure that not only the privileged get to go.

"There are children who are from family backgrounds where they are taken to the theatre and learn to appreciate it. Children who go to drama schools and who have drama scheduled in their school timetable automatically value theatre.

"But it is a small percentage of children who have such opportunities. We need to take theatre to our children. Children need to discover theatre in order to love it. Most of our youths never go to the theatre, even when there are quality performances - it is just an entertainment they have never discovered and it probably would cost less than a night out in Paceville."

Theatre, said Ms Gatt, not only sparks children's imagination but is also an educational medium, such as for the teaching of language. Indeed, some schools specifically asked for performances in one language or the other. The Secret Garden was the only production in English, and although many of the children did not come from English speaking backgrounds, because theatre is so visual they could understand.

"I could hear some of them translating for others and at times even pre-empting certain parts of the script which were intentionally put in as a kind of refrain," said Ms Gatt. "Children concentrated; they really got involved and participated in the performances, which were highly interactive. It is no news that children learn a lot when enjoying themselves."