Designing a School Play

Abstract

The art of play production is perhaps the most challenging of all the arts because it requires the co-operative effort of a large number of artists each competent in the various arts of acting, directing, costume and set designing, music, make-up and lighting. In using drama as a tool for education we can utilize these various elements to give our children an opportunity to mould rounded personalities through intellectual and physical development. It is a medium through which the students of science, literature and the industrial arts can work together to exercise their various skills. Besides this, the finished production that goes on stage before an appreciative audience will provide children with immense emotional and spiritual satisfaction. I say “finished production” because today a school play is not judged simply in terms of whether it is enjoyable to be acting in it. The art of play production requires the skilful co-ordination of not only the artistic skill of the director and his actors but also the equally important skills of designing, lighting, effects, wood-working, metal-working and the other related arts. In fact, the play can become an instrument through which a school can put into practice all the lessons that are taught by the history, geography, art, science and industrial arts teachers.