By Jennifer Andersen and Robert Brown

“Theatre with, for and by young people”: we have become used to seeing this as a tag line to describe and promote theatre for young audiences, and it’s a tag line that is quite loaded, open to diverse meanings by different practitioners. It points to a belief, or hope, that our work with young people can and should be more than involving passive audiences; it should engage young people as co-creators in theatre that centres on their lives and worlds. This is a worthy aspiration that can be approached in multiple, equally valid ways by artists according to their skills, circumstances and creative goals.

We, (Heidi Weatherald and Jennifer Andersen) formed our creative partnership of Pocketfool Productions in 2003. Prior to this we both had experience with young people in Theatre In Education (TIE) and Youth Theatre performance. When starting Pocketfool Productions our primary and immediate aim was to create the sort of theatre that we wanted to perform, and which we hoped very young children and their families would love. The work was very much ‘for’ young audiences.

Throughout our work with children we have reflected on the meaning of the word “interaction”. In the past we’ve felt frustrated by comments that very young children can’t sit still, even that it’s not good for them to do so, and that the most appropriate sort of theatre for that age group is one whe…