Good day and welcome to my blog as I want to share some content from my school days tittle community theatre. Firstly I'm a graduate from college of education Akwanga, from the department of theatre arts.
Now what is theatre? Theatre is a collaborative work of art where performers usually actors or actress perform real or imagine performance to audience in particular place often a stage. This may include the combination of gestures, speech,music and dance.
Theatre for development is not theatre for pure entertainment but rather theatre for the people it spurs people to take action on issues affecting their communities.
Also community is a theatre of the people,by the people and for the people which treat the actual problem of the environment, highlighting them and opening discussions on the workout. Now let me take you back to how my community theatre takes place then, using the Issues identified through conversations with the villagers my team and I created two stories largely through improvisation specific to the community. The first play was tittle Dangers of Drug Abuse in both English and housa for them to understand perfectly, while the second play was tittle unity in diversity.
The ideas with theatre for development is for the audience to see themselves in the characters and access the characters behavior as human beings in the community. One of the community member who was part of the cast volunteerd to teach everybody a song that encourages young children to face their studies and avoid peer pressure. The production included other songs , Proverbs,and an interlude that would offer space for an explanation for the final scene. We also added a narrator who at the end of the play the audience where been address and give them space to engage in a political discussion for them to understand the causes and way out of their problems. The play centers around three (3) friends who all live wayward life's in the villages, drinking and smoking, not attending their classes and believing the nonsense that education is a decent, at the end of the day, they all start to behave in an irrational manner as a result of thr addiction of drugs. A narrator then advises the audience on the dangers of drug abuse and the benefit of education in the lives of students. The actors on stage freeze for a moment to make space for a discussion between the narrator and the audience above above the issues at hand ,and the play ends with the narrator singing a familiar song and encouraging the audience to sing with her. The second play tittle unity in diversity, also began with songs and dances, this time specific to the two major ethnic groups of the community; "Eggon and Mada" The play, performed in English and housa, is about three market women from the community whose shops are beside each other. This causes a major clash, which leads to verbal insults while two of the women constantly uses their ethnicity to justify their personal attributes while dismissing the other as a result of their ethnicity. An old woman who doubles as the narrator walks into the scene, after which everyone else freezes. She talks to the market women about the need for a unified community, which gives room for all irrespective of their social breakthrough, and ends her monologue by speaking directly to the community members, encouraging them to bring peace into the community by settling tribal sentiment aside. The play ends with a soft song sang by the women of the community while hugging each other.
Thank you for stopping by to read from me I really appreciate