Tag Archives: toy theater

Making Toy Theatre Work in the U.K. – Hansel & Gretel at childrens parties and other settings

Posted on by Collette Knowles
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Hello everyone, you may have noticed that the last blog I did was a review and that I have not said anything about all the things I got up to before Christmas.  So here’s a post to rectify the situation.

I had been finding it very difficult to sell the Hansel & Gretel Toy Theatre show in this country, despite it going down so well at the Vischmarkt Papierentheater Festival in Harderwijk, The Netherlands.

This was firstly because Toy Theatre is not as well known and popular in this country as it is on the continent.  Secondly, you are limited to a small audience and many people wish to squeeze as many audience members as they can in to a venue when they have booked a show.

I solved the first problem by creating a video trailer for the show.  You can now see this on our website, (CLICK HERE FOR SHOW PAGE).  This means that anyone with no experience of Toy Theatre (and our particular take on it) can now get a good idea of what the show is like.

It appears that the second problem has also been solved simply by using the show in places where a small audience is an advantage.  The show is perfect for small scale venues or smaller groups, such as Children’s parties and Pupil Referral Units, (where children who are struggling in mainstream education for whatever reason are taken out to be taught in smaller groups.  They get more individual attention and staff are trained to deal with their needs and difficulties).

We were booked by a family who we did a Pirate Party for earlier in the year, (for their son Henry) to do something for their daughter’s birthday and the “Hansel & Gretel” show immediately came to mind.  The show kept 15 wriggly energetic kids of a wide variety of ages, (mostly between 4 and 6) absorbed, quiet and still for a full 30 minutes and the adults seemed to really love it too.  We then filled the rest of the time with various musical songs and games.

Similarly spellbound were the children at Bradley PRU, who stayed still throughout, though they did react to and interact with the story.  Afterwards we had lots of unprompted positive feedback both from the children and the staff, as well as a lot of questions about how we made the show and so on.  One of the staff said that it was the quietest they’d ever seen them.  After a brief break, the children made their own individual shoe-box toy theatres like I did for Buxton Puppet Festival in 2011, (CLICK HERE FOR BUXTON POST).  The children did excellent work, were very absorbed by the task and seemed to enjoy themselves very much.

The family who we did the party for mentioned the idea of getting us back again this year for their son’s birthday again.  With this in mind, we need to think of some new party formats.  This year we are going to be updating our main website, (www.roughmagictheatre.co.uk) and one of the things we intend to include is all of the different sorts of parties that we can do.

I have had suggestions already of puppet making parties, but would like more feedback on the sorts of themes and activities that people think would be popular.  Please leave your suggestions in the comments box at the bottom, (you have to click on the title of the blog post for the comments box to appear).

The “where you can see me” page has been updated and will continue to be updated as I get confirmation of more performances so watch this space 🙂

Are Arts Professionals doing enough to Advocate the Value of the Arts?

Posted on by Collette Knowles
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I recently attended an X-Trax Street Arts Networking Event in Manchester.  A point was raised by one of the people there in response to a newspaper article that was suggesting that attempts to make the arts appeal to the masses were failing.  The article justified this position by looking at the audience numbers and demographics for traditionally elitist art forms such as Ballet and Opera.

Unfortunately I have been unable to locate the article in question.  It was suggested by people at the meeting that we, as street arts professionals, should be doing more to highlight our success in reaching huge numbers of ordinary people.  It was also suggested that we should try and counteract the possible dearth of work and funding next year, (in the wake of the olympics) by blowing our own trumpets.  We should try and highlight all of the good work that we have done this year with the cultural olympiad money.

While searching for the article in question, I found another article which questions whether arts professionals are using the right approach to advocate the arts or whether they just come across as elitist and “luvvy”.  It also raises the issue of whether Equity’s approach of concentrating on the economic benefits of the arts is missing the point.  A lot of art that is truly in touch with ordinary people in the community is not about making a profit, but about wellbeing and quality of life; but are the government interested in that?  CLICK HERE FOR THE ARTICLE.

While I was perusing this article I saw an interview with Liz Pugh from Walk the Plank in a “culture professionals network” sidebar which seems to be doing exactly what was advocated at the meeting.  CLICK HERE FOR LIZ’S ARTICLE

If you are an arts professional, or anyone who values the arts and are concerned about the lack of artistic subjects in the new EBacc, there is a petition and other resources for campaigning on the “Bacc For The Future” website.  CLICK HERE FOR WEBSITE

On a different subject, we have peformed our Hansel & Gretel Toy Theatre show for the locals at Low Bentham Victoria Institute.  Everyone who attended really enjoyed it with 2 children who came back to see it a second time!  A big thankyou to everyone who came to support us.

Our next appearance is also a local one.  Our popular Shadow Puppet Suitcase show “Edward Lear’s Nonsense” will be seen in High Bentham for the first time at Santa’s Late Night Shopping Evening from 6pm on Friday the 7th of December.  There are lots of other exciting things going on, particularly for children.  CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO.  I will have more specific details of where in the town centre I’ll be performing soon, so watch this space!

We’ll also be taking the Hansel & Gretel show to a birthday party and to a Pupil Referral Unit (where they’ll also be making their own shoe-box toy theatres).  And, in what I expect will be it’s last outing of the year, our “Alice in Wonderland” show is giving a North Yorkshire Primary School a Christmas treat.

As a little topic for thought and discussion.  Please leave your comments on the question “What is the best way to demonstrate the value of the arts?”  If you have comments on anything else in this post please feel free to stray from the question. 🙂