As a parent deciding which after school activities might suit your child or navigating between them whilst your child wants to do everything can be a bit of a struggle. So we thought that it might be helpful to do a blog on the top ten reasons why you would choose a drama or theatre club.
1. Gain confidence
For many parents having a confident child is paramount and for young people having the confidence to speak out in an appropriate way is a key life skill. Working with others, sharing ideas, creating projects and mixing with new people are all part of the drama club experience. The club is a safe place to explore character traits, likes and dislikes and to experiment.
2. Meet friends
Meeting new people outside of the circle of school means that young people can create a diverse group of friends and can learn about other ways of doing things. For some school may not have provided exactly the right mix of people and for others simply gaining new friends is a bonus and widens their life experience.
3. Learn new skills
Theatre club means that young people are learning how to problem solve, they are learning about techniques in the theatre, group work and text work. They may also learn aspects of stage management and lighting or how to set a scene, tell a story or make something interesting and live.
4. Get in touch with your creativity
For some young people school does not always offer an opportunity to be very creative, set curriculums and exams can prevent a really creative person from expressing their individuality and theatre club can provide an outlet.
5. Experiment with other sides to your character
One of the joys of role play is that you can experiment and change things, you can become another person and really explore sides to yourself which you may not get the opportunity to do anywhere else. Working with others you may also discover that you are good at things which are a revelation such as directing or selling, making something interesting and alive or being a really good team member.
6. Enjoy seeing things through the eyes of someone else
Acting enables young people to learn empathy and to really think about how it would be if they were different. Using script or improvisation you can explore a situation through someone else's eyes and really start to understand a different perspective.
7. Helps you to think on your feet
How often in life do we have to make quick decisions? Theatre club can be a place where you learn to do that as you are given roles to play or situations to explore and problems to solve and have only a few minutes to do it. Like any other skill this requires practice and in the safety of your local club you can get that and try new things out.
8. Team work
Getting to work with others who might be new or have more experience is part of working in a team. Solving problems together, tackling issues, creating new visions and making sure everyone gets a say are part of any work on a script, role play or improvisation. Learning to understand other people's point of view is a key requirement for most roles in life.
9. Compromise
And that leads us to compromise, something which is necessary if you are working with others. Someone might have a cherished idea or their idea may simply be better and learning how to give in graciously and being able to agree and move on is another key skill.
10. Helps you to read
Reading is not just about being able to read in your head it is also about learning to give expression to the words on the page and read out loud. Getting to grips with a script can help young people see that there are more than words on a page and that giving them life is important and can make reading far more interesting. Of course reading scripts also can open young people up to a whole new vocabulary as well.
All in all these ten points are only a few of the reasons why drama or theatre clubs are great experiences for young people and have huge benefits in enabling them to become resilient, confident and out going adults.
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