SDSU’s annual theatre festival does its best to not only entertain, but to educate

One could call it a balancing act – school districts across the country are simultaneously facing reduced budgets and pressure to raise the bar on student achievement. With limited options, many of them choose to curb, or outright eliminate, arts education programs.

Though research has shown a strong link between student achievement and exposure to the arts – including visual arts, performing arts and music – those programs are the first to go during lean times.

According to researchers at Stanford University and the University of California, Los Angeles, music education translates to higher mathematics scores, while experience in theatre correlates with enhanced reading skills. The rise in test scores is even more pronounced for students from low-income backgrounds.

SDSU's annual theatre festival
entertains while it educates.

Early introduction to the arts can also create minds that seek multiple interpretations of problems and events; encourage students to be more collaborative; and support active and participatory learning, Harvard and Columbia university researchers have found.

Therein lies the conundrum. How can parents, especially those with limited means, expose their child to the magic of music, dance and theatre if not through public education?

Enter the annual Theatre of the World Festival with the banging of drums, giant puppets and actors attempting to entertain.

For two days each February, the performing arts plaza at San Diego State University transforms into a world of colorful entertainers, dance-friendly music and an appreciative audience of children and their families.

Playing outdoors and in

The outdoor component of the Theatre of the World Festival is called the “fringe festival,” and presents dance troupes, live music, a giant puppet parade and arts and crafts activities. The indoor activities include performances in three SDSU theatres.

A young boy watches a performance by a San
Diego Guild of Puppetry member.

This year, the 11th annual Theatre of the World Festival begins on Friday, Feb. 8.

“It begins on a Friday night with a kick-off reception event and one, or sometimes two, performances,” said Dani Bedau, SDSU theatre professor and the new artistic director of the event. “And then it’s all day on Saturday – six to eight theatrical music dance productions happening in various theater spaces around the Don Powell Theatre courtyard area.”

Feature presentations will include a musical adaptation by SDSU theatre professor Margaret Larlham of Rudyard Kipling’s “The Jungle Book;” a screening of the film, “Miss Navajo,” which follows the anything-but-ordinary Navajo Nation pageant; a performance of San Diego-based Diversionary Theatre’s “The Daddy Machine;” and a special presentation of “The Cloud Gatherer,” an award-winning production by California State University Los Angeles students.

“The plays are different – some are going to make you laugh hilariously and that’s wonderful,” said Margaret McKerrow, the festival’s founding artistic director and professor emerita in the School of Theatre, Television and Film. Other presentations, she said, are sad or moving “and that’s just as good as making you laugh.”

More than 10 years ago, McKerrow was inspired to create a celebration of children’s theatre that would appeal to SDSU students, faculty and staff members as well as to children.

How inspiration hit

“For years, I (had) gone to conferences here and around the world where I saw performed absolutely fabulous plays for children done by adults. Most of the world has professional theatre companies that create plays for children and we don’t do much of that in the United States,” McKerrow said.

Audience participation is encouraged during a giant
puppet parade down Campanile Walkway.

“It bothered me that students and other people at San Diego State didn’t have an opportunity to see the kind of wonderful work that could be done for children, so I decided that we should have a festival on our own campus to give our students and the community an opportunity to see some of the really amazing, sophisticated and exciting work that can be done by theatre companies for children.”

Educating and entertaining

While the focus of the festival is entertainment, it also seeks to educate the community and SDSU students.

The SDSU School of Television, Theatre and Film and the Department of Women’s Studies will co-present a panel discussion following the Friday night performance of “The Daddy Machine,” the child-friendly musical that explores what it’s like to be raised by same-sex parents.

According to Jay Sheehan, Theatre of the World producer and an SDSU theatre professor, the diverse panel includes the playwright Patricia Loughrey and a 12-year-old girl who served as a consultant to the project. They will discuss the inherent challenges faced by families with same-sex parents.

SDSU students perform an original production in
Don Powell Theatre.

SDSU students from a diverse range of disciplines also assisted in planning this year’s festival through a course offered in the School of Television, Theatre and Film. The course taught them about managing and coordinating entertainment events like the festival.

And while this year’s Theatre of the World Festival is right around the corner, producers are already planning next year’s event.

“We’re moving into thematic programming for the festival, and in 2009, we’re going to launch that, Bedau said. “The theme is a regional focus on the Middle East, which we’re calling ‘Many Stories, Many Truths: Voices of the Middle East.’ It’s going to include Persian, Kurdish, Turkish, Israeli and Arabic cultures in presentations by international, national and local groups.”

With the growing focus on regions throughout the world, it’s a guarantee that the Theatre of the World Festival will enlighten attendees on other cultures and continue to prove an educational resource to the children of San Diego and their families.

Related information

• “The Cloud Gatherer” video
• “Miss Navajo” Movie Web site
• SDSU Theatre Department
• Theatre of the World
• SDSU TYME (Theatre Youth Media Education) Arts Center
• Diversionary Theatre

Credits

• Story by Lorena Nava Ruggero
• Story edited by Coleen L. Geraghty
• Graphics by John Signer
• Photos by Jay Sheehan