States that although many theater producers assume that child audiences empathize and identify with stage heroes during performances, some do not believe children can or should verbalize their private empathetic experiences. Presents results from a study of grade school children that challenges theoretical assumptions about emotional learning…

Studies perceptions of and responses to a production of Barry Kornhauser's play "This Is Not a Pipe Dream" from second, fourth, and sixth graders and adults. Finds that production styles need to be more explicit and organically tied to actions so that metaphoric themes become more recognizably visible and audible to young untrained…

Synthesizes teachers' evaluations of university productions of theater for children from 1977 to 1995 by analyzing emergent themes and common factors among teachers' perceptions across play content. Compares teachers' interpretations of their students' experiences with children's responses to selected plays to help explain similar and discrepant…

Describes 45 third graders'"dramatic literacy" and the modal sources for inferences. Finds that (1) the more children used visual cues, the more they used verbal and psychological cues; and (2) inferences about the play's theme were related to aural recall of thematic dialogue and what children reported learning from the play. (SR)

Two studies investigate the way in which children make sense of a play and the visual, aural, and psychological components of theatre which contribute to this comprehension. In the first study, 32 fifth graders saw "Don Quixote of La Mancha." In the second study, 45 third graders saw "Monkey, Monkey" (about the Chinese Monkey King). The day after…

A study explored perceived reality and developmental differences in viewing theater. Subjects, 33 second graders, 33 fourth graders, 23 sixth graders, and 23 college students viewed a production of "This Is Not a Pipe Dream," a non-representational play based on biographical facts about the early life and work of the surrealist painter…

First grade students (38) viewed a theater production on the theme of friendship in a study designed to determine the degree of the students' dramatic literacy. General objectives of the study were to: (1) compare children's learning from live theater with their learning from television; (2) describe what children knew about the play they saw and…