A Case Study for Teaching Children's Theatre Appreciation

Objectives The purpose of this study is to examine some cases of Teaching Children's Theatre Appreciation designed in consideration of objects and before/after performances in order to enrich the experience of watching a children's theater. Methods To this end, prior research related to performance appreciation was reviewed, and the appreciation education program actually designed and applied by the Korean children's theater company was investigated and analyzed. The cases of the theater company ‘Olive and Jin Kong’, the theater company ‘Dandelion’, the theater company ‘Story Bucket’, and the theater company ‘Good Neighbors’ were targeted, and the research was designed and analyzed from March to December 2023 to write a paper. Results According to a survey of cases of designing performance viewing methods, the children's theater company was developing various programs that children can do before, during, and after the performance when designing appreciation activities to construct subjective meanings and aim for objective evaluation. The types of methods of appreciation before the performance included the art play workbook of the performance of the theater company “Olive and Jin Kong”, “Me, the Monster, and the Bag”. The types of methods of appreciation during the performance included Good Neighbors' puppet show to prevent sexual violence, and a character in the puppet show appeared in the middle of the performance to communicate with the audience. As for the type of appreciation method after the performance, the creative theater company “Story Bucket” distributed subdivided activity sheets based on the audience's age and guided children to do various activities after the performance, or the notable case was that children selected from among physical activities, art activities, and discussion activities after watching the performance at the theater company “Dandelion”. Conclusions Based on various programs developed by these cases, Children's theater companies should discuss and develop more ways to watch performances in the future to enrich the way to watch children's plays.