History of Australian Children's Theatre
Exploring Australia's Live Entertainment for Children
Australia's children's theatre did not truly exist outside of traditional Easter and Christmas shows until well into the '70s or '80s. This was due to Australia's traditional interest in theatre as quite a marginal activity.
However, due to the influence of children's programs on television throughout the '80s, a great deal of artists now found themselves employed to write and create entertainment specifically for children.
These early pioneers, such as Jack Davis (playwright of Honey Spot) and Debra Oswald (playwright of DAGs) paved the way for many to follow. These early works were not particuarly outstanding theatrically, but had a tangible Australian texture that did not exist in Australian children's theatre beforehand.
Some more contemporary playwrights who have written works for children are Richard Tulloch, Peter Charlton, Stephen Davis, Graeme Pitts, and David Holman.
International Children's Theatre
Australia's body of work is substantially disappointing when put into contrast with other works internationally. In the UK and US, vast amounts of artists make livings entirely off creating theatre for children, an idea that is only really a dream in Australia, given it's different attitude towards theatre generally. Where the UK has it's long celebrated pantomime traditions, and the US now has a canon of children's theatre literature, Australia's children's theatre industry is still very young.
Nevertheless, there exist many theatre companies in Australia dedicated to youth arts, but only a small margin of such companies commit substantial time to creating theatre specifically. Instead, such companies are likely to work in partnership with schools in order to create artistic opportunities for kids through a range of mediums such as visual arts, music, dance and drama.
The staff who run such companies are usually very passionate about youth arts, and believe in the great benefit to social behaviour and increased literacy a healthy exposure to the arts has for most children.
Children's Standard Exposure to Theatre
Each state has an arts body that is responsible for producing children shows that then tour to schools. This is usually how most children are exposed to theatre, and has been for many decades. Aside from this, most children's experience of theatre continue to be small promotional shows at shopping malls, and Christmas and Easter events.
The general consensus within the Australian arts community is that a severe lack of funding has meant an industry that has never been allowed to blossom. However, until theatre and the arts are at the forefront of a major cultural shift in Australian's attitudes, than children's theatre will remain of small concern to government funding bodies.
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