Effective Theatre Production Management: an indicator for Sustenance of Educational Theatre

Abstract

Historically, theatrical production dates back to ancient Greece. It can be a performance fromhigh school, college productions, community theatre, or commercial theatre, among others, toattract different audiences. Regular theatrical practice, h owever, remains an importantyardstick to determine the effectiveness of theatre on the audiences, who are an indispensablecomponent of the theatre capable of exerting considerable influence on the production. Theterm “educational theatre” in this study refers to the theatre, which exists as part of formaleducational institutions that educate both the student participants and the audience.Educational theatrical productions educate the students by using theatre productions as onemight use a classroom as a learning tool. In this case, the audience sits in the theatreauditorium to watch the students demonstrate what they have learned, noting that “if a goodtheatre depends on a good audience, then every audience has the theatre it deserves”. It isagainst this background that the paper is focused on theatrical productions of the Departmentof Theatre Arts, Federal College of Education, Abeokuta, Ogun State, from its inception in2004 2023, to find out the effectiveness of theatre production towards the sus tenance ofeducational theatre as indicated in the NCE minimum standard. Without gainsaying, the studyrevealed that Sixty nine(69)play productions from the Department’s Annual theatricalproductions tagged “Festival of Plays” and Twenty six (26) plays sta ged by the graduatingstudents titled “Final Year Productions”, which cut across diverse tribes, culture and religionsignificantly fulfil the purpose and values of Educational Theatre practice in Nigeria and byextension justified its existence in the cur riculum.