Toward an ethical practice : child performers in contemporary performance for adult audiences

Abstract

This article responds to the recent and rapid rise in the practice, within contemporary theatre-making, of creating new performance work for adult audiences featuring children as performers and collaborators. Within this work there is a tension between the desire for a representation of the authentic voice and lived experience of the child performer and the poetic function of the performance. This question of the place of authenticity in work dogs much performance work created by professional artists with children for adult audiences and can shape the way artists approach the rehearsal process with child performers. I examine the creative and aesthetic strategies of creating work with child performers, and consider the pedagogical frames of actor practice that underpin this process, asking what an ethical dramaturgy for contemporary performance with children for adult audiences might look like