Not So Dumb: Four Plays for Young People - Softcover

Lazarus, John

9780887545788: Not So Dumb: Four Plays for Young People

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0887545785 ISBN 13: 9780887545788

Publisher: Playwrights Canada Press, 2000

These four related one-act plays follow a spirited girl named Binnie and her peers from age eight to mid-teens as they make friends, face enemies and win self-respect. Includes: Schoolyard Games Not So Dumb Nightlight Secrets John Lazarus' brilliant studies of the pains and pressures that children face on the road to maturity have earned him wide audiences and a reputation for excellence in the field of Theatre for Young Audiences. He examines the lives of young people through their own eyes, fashioning a critical yet comic world that speaks to the experience of both children and adults.

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About the Author:

John Lazarus is a playwright, screenwriter, dramaturge, actor, critic, and teacher. He graduated from the National Theatre School in 1969. Besides writing numerous plays for stage, John Lazarus has also written for film, television, and radio, including the adaptation of material from Village of Idiots for a CBC Radio mini-series and an award-winning National Film Board cartoon. He has worked frequently as a dramaturge and adjudicator, and has written theatre reviews for several newspapers, including The Vancouver Province and The Georgia Strait. He has taught playwriting and solo show technique at Studio 58 (Langara College) in Vancouver, the Vancouver Film School, and the National Theatre School. In 2000 he joined the Queen�€™s University Drama Department as an Assistant Professor, where he taught playwriting, dramaturgy, and young people�€™s theatre, and wrote the play Meltdown, produced by the students of the Drama Department in 2005. He now lives in B.C.

From School Library Journal:

Grade 8 Up-These four brief, interconnected plays were created for the Green Thumb Theatre of Vancouver, Canada. Clearly didactic, they deal with such common but important themes as friendship, self-esteem, honesty, fear, and peer pressure. The first three were designed to be performed by teen actors for a much younger audience, since the characters range in age from 7 through l0. In the fourth, similar themes remain, but they are addressed within the context of the blossoming sexuality of students in their mid-teens. Three pivotal characters appear repeatedly in various combinations, binding this cycle of free standing dramas into an orchestrated whole. Binnie and Rocky, both 10, are LD students who share a devotion to their special education teacher in Not So Dumb. Victor is a socially inept "brain" whose house party sets the scene for the final play in which Rocky and Binnie, now in their teens and sexually involved, sort out a bumpy relationship. Fast paced, with lively (sometimes crude, but realistic) dialogue, these plays offer young thespians distinctively drawn personalities from which to fashion well-rounded characters. Most would be simple to stage, with the exception of the first, which requires playground equipment and the performance of several calisthenic stunts. It is doubtful that many young adults will pick this volume up on their own, but it would be useful in collections that are heavily used by teachers or drama coaches.
Margaret Cole, Oceanside Library, NY
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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