Polka Theatre for Children
www.polkatheatre.com
National Voluntary & Community Award Winner
Background
Established in 1968, The Polka Theatre is the only theatre building in the UK solely dedicated to creating and staging work for children. The theatre aims to offer high quality productions in a welcoming and stimulating environment to enhance children's theatre experience through a programme of educational activities.
In 1999 the theatre got involved in the WebPlay initiative, an online project linking primary school children in London with their elementary school counterparts in Los Angeles, using theatre and playwriting as a framework for activity.
The Opportunity and Challenges
The WebPlay project grew out of the theatre's desire to use the net as more than just a tool to sell tickets and market its products and services. The theatre wanted to explore the relationship between theatre and technology and see how it could combine the two to further its reach artistically, educationally and internationally.
Because the programme is aimed at primary school children, the theatre needed to find a secure and advertising-free online environment, which it found was offered through Oracle's Think.com platform. As added security, all pupils are provided with individual usernames and passwords to log onto the WebPlay site.
How the programme works
Aimed at Year 4/5 pupils, the programme lasts for 14 weeks and involves children in both London and Los Angeles. The classes on each side of the Atlantic initially learn about each other and their cities via email, brainstorms and the student's individual web pages.
The pupils then begin monitoring the development of a production of 'Star Gazer' by the Polka Theatre for Children, becoming 'virtual Assistant Directors' and interacting online with writers, actors and designers to learn how a production is created. During this time the children can ask questions and get answers from the producer, scriptwriter or technical director.
Halfway through the project, Polka performs the play for the London classes, which is combined with a full day of workshops on how to create their own plays. This process is then repeated in Los Angeles.
Following these workshops, each class begins writing their own play, collaborating with other classes on the programme online. The plays are then performed, digitally videotaped and posted on the WebPlay web site for viewing.
Success
The project is going into its third year and currently involves 34 classes, with over 1,000 pupils participating, with 300 pupils taking part in the pilot year. Some benefits to come from the programme include seeing increased self-esteem and improved social skills amongst the children, as well as a broadening of their horizons. As WebPlay is aligned to the National Curriculum, delivering targets in literacy, technology and citizenship, it also enables teachers to meet their objectives.
The WebPlay project team, headed up by Sydney Thornbury, continually evaluates the progress being made, which enables the programme to be reviewed and refined to meet the needs of both the children and teachers.
As an education project the theatre also needs funding and partners to help run the programme. To date, partnerships have been secured with Southwark Education Business Alliance and The Oracle Corporation, and funding has been sourced from Arts & Business and The Esmee Fairbairn Charitable Trust.
The Future
In September 2002 the project is planned to involve 40 classes which will be run in Southwark, Lambeth, Tower Hamlets and Harrow. A pilot project is also planned to run in New York, partly sponsored by the British Council, following an approach from the New York State Board for Education, Queens.
Closer to home, whilst the programme is currently aimed at Year 4/5 pupils, there are also plans to expand the programme to a wider age group, and also develop a component of the project for special needs pupils and pupils who are at risk of failing in mainstream education. There are also plans to work on a pilot of an out-of -school format for the project.
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