Volume 8

Beginning with a one-off production in 1966, The Ungrateful Man, there was a steady build-up of projects and activities in Bangalore Little Theatre to comprise a full-fledged programme thrust committed to schools and young audiences. The five plays in Volume 8 bring us to the year 2021 in the Children's Theatre programme. Volume 3 was the first compilation of Children's Theatre plays. The two Volumes include only the plays presented as performances in the programme series. They do not reveal a lot else done in parallel in reaching schools. There are also the plays developed specifically for the Theatre-in-Education programme. We will see some of that work in Volume 9.

The plays in this Volume, and A Bellyful of Paradise in particular, reiterate BLT's position that children are capable of far higher levels of comprehension than we care to recognize. (Indeed, they have often absorbed play scripts that went over the heads of adult audiences.) Children's Theatre is too often equated with fun and froth on stage, dumbing down the storyline, and actors talking down to the children. It need not be so. Going by the credo of Theatre for Young Audiences (TYA) it must not be so. The plays by BLT are designed to tour schools. They include schools in rural areas and schools reaching underprivileged communities. The response of the children to the plays is the greatest testimony to what we have set out to do in Children's Theatre.