Creative drama is an improvisational, non-exhibitional, process-centered form of drama in which participants are guided by a leader to image, enact and reflect upon human experience.
The purpose of creative drama is to foster personality growth and to facilitate learning of the participants rather than to train actors for the stage. Creative drama may be used to teach the art of drama and/or motivate and extend the learning in other content areas. Participation in creative drama has the potential to develop language and communication abilities, problem-solving skills, and creativity; to promote a positive self-concept, social awareness, empathy, a clarification of values and attitudes, and an understanding of the art of theater. Built on human impulse and ability to act out perceptions of the world in order to understand it, creative drama requires both logical and intuitive thinking, personalizes knowledge, and yields aesthetic pleasure.
Winifred Ward is considered the founder of creative drama in America.
Famous quotes containing the words creative and/or drama:
“... no writing is a waste of time,—no creative work where the feelings, the imagination, the intelligence must work.”
—Brenda Ueland (1891–1985)
“Only in the problem play is there any real drama, because drama is no mere setting up of the camera to nature: it is the presentation in parable of the conflict between Man’s will and his environment: in a word, of problem.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)