Active Theatre History

Abstract

The study of Theatre History, overwhelmingly considered beneficial to high school theatre students, has a greater success of engaging them if it involves active and creative learning. That’s the theory; this article describes one praxis that supports the theory. It is a learning activity that incorporates higher order thinking skills to synthesize knowledge into the creation of something new. This project requires students to research genres or eras of theatre history and function as playwrights who write a scene that reflects the characters, conflicts, and conventions of a given period. Enhancing the goal of moving from theory into practice, this article provides a detailed description of the praxis and includes accompanying resources.