Dramatic play ideas at home

This classic dramatic play center is another favorite. Set up a hospital with a triage cot, doctor costumes and lots of props. No explanation is needed! This is one of the centers (like the grocery store and the restaurant) that the children are usually very familiar with. They love to be called “Doctor”! Click HERE for more pictures of the set-up.

Hot Drink Cafe – Dramatic Play Center

Warm up with a mug of hot chocolate and a fresh pastry at the “Star Drinks” hot drink cafe. Click HERE to see lots of photo inspiration.

Ice Cream Parlor – Dramatic Play Center

Chocolate and mint ice cream with cherries on top… coming right up! Preschoolers love to scoop and sell this summer treat to their friends. Click HERE to see more pictures.

Do your students love to reread the books that you share with them in class? Set your dramatic play area up as a Library. Allow them to “check out” books with their very own library card and return them to school the next day.

Pancake and Waffle

What’s for breakfast?! Add the pancake and waffle sets (available HERE and HERE from Melissa & Doug) to the kitchen and fire up the grill. Children will love the custom menus and all of the toppings for their delicious breakfast.

Make a brick oven from a cardboard box and a roll of “brick” wrapping paper. Preschoolers will make pizzas, and order pizzas, and deliver pizzas, and pretend to eat pizzas ALL.DAY.LONG! Click HERE to see all the photos.

Post Office – Dramatic Play Center

Invite children to write letters to the parents or grandparents, to make cards for their classmates, and to deliver the mail at the Post Office Dramatic Play Center. Click HERE to see lots of pictures.

Can we take your order? The restaurant dramatic play center is chock full of opportunities to practice reading, writing, and teamwork. Click HERE to see the menu and order forms that are perfect for emergent readers.

Sandwich Shop – Dramatic Play Center

Switch the general restaurant into a fast-food sandwich shop. With this dramatic play idea, students will follow the menu board from left to right to choose the bread, protein, vegetables, and toppings for their very own sandwich.

Would you like a taco or a burrito from this very popular Taco Stand? Preschoolers will take your order then create the taco or burrito of your choice. What a way to “spice” up the dramatic play center!

Vet Clinic – Dramatic Play Center

While you’re learning about zoo animals, pets, or even the farm, this dramatic play Vet Clinic is a great way to engage children in pretend play. They will care for the animals and become veterinarians, x-ray technicians, and nurses.

Transformed trifold science boards into a straw house, a stick house and a brick house for an adorable version of the Three Little Pigs. Preschoolers who can memorize and act out stories will have great comprehension skills when they get to school. It’s also fun act out Goldilocks and the Three Billy Goats Gruff.

Whether you’re setting up a plain restaurant, a pizza parlor, an ice cream shop, or a taco stand, here’s a surefire FUN way to spice it up. Add a drink machine! You can use a box or a bookshelf with just a few simple additions (paper cups and tissue paper) to make it extraordinary. Click HERE for more details.

If you’re looking for a quick set-up, cheap center, this is it! Get all the supplies from the dollar store and added water. It’s great for summer, too. Take those kids outside and put them to work! Sometimes the best dramatic play ideas are the simplest.

Put on paleontology hats and look for dinosaur bones and footprints at this dramatic play dig site. Click HERE to see how to use a simple ingredient from the craft store to turn the sensory table into an excavation site.

Do your kids like to pretend or role play? What is your favorite way to set it up? Whatever it is, have tons of fun playing and learning with your children today.

Be sure to follow this Dramatic Play Pinterest board for even more dramatic play ideas.

Follow Play to Learn Preschool’s board Dramatic Play Preschool on Pinterest.

All dramatic play idea printables are available HERE:

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a theater that is always in search - the Stary Dom Theater

April 11, 2022
Suzanne Zakaryan Sibirische Zeitung plus

An invitation to dialogue, the search for new meanings and forms and openness to the unusual - all this is about the Novosibirsk state theater "Old house". Here they are not afraid to experiment and respect the classics, believe in the power of the idea and appreciate the talent of the audience. Theater director Antonida Goreyavcheva told the newspaper Sibirische Zeitung plus how the "Old House" creates projects, "gropes" for the pulse of the times and participates in prestigious festivals.

– Antonida Alexandrovna, the performance "The Idiot" was presented at one of the most significant theater festivals "Golden Mask" in eleven nominations at once. How did a small Novosibirsk theater manage to make itself known in so many nominations?

- The fact is that this is not our first trip to the "Golden Mask" and not our first nominations. We started our way to the festival a long time ago: we presented at the Golden Mask productions of Elementary Particles, Caddis, I'm Here, Snow Maiden, for which, by the way, we received two Masks in 2017. I think that the presentation of the performance in eleven nominations speaks of progressive work: the theater is growing, the theater is developing, its talent is expanding - and this is very significant for us. In general, eleven nominations for the "Golden Mask" in the drama theater section is a precedent. Even the general director of the festival, Maria Revyakina, noted that the nomination of one performance for so many nominations is an event. And this, of course, indicates that we are taking our place on the theatrical map of Russia and representing Novosibirsk with dignity.

– At the festival, the Stary Dom troupe was noted as one of the best in the country. How did these words resonate with you personally?

- Of course, this is a great pride. I'm proud of the troupe, I'm proud of the theatre. Fifteen years ago, when I started working at Stary Dom, the theater was going through hard times, and a lot had to be started from scratch. First of all, it was necessary to assemble a team of like-minded people: after all, one director, no matter how excellent a specialist he may be, alone will not raise such a volume of cases. Our current success is the result of many years of work of the entire theater team. Well-coordinated and talented work.

- "The Old House" from performance to performance surprises the audience with a new reading of the works, new forms. How does the public feel about such a theater - a modern, bold, somewhat experimental theater?

– I would like to emphasize that we are a repertory, not an experimental theater. We have a well-defined repertoire policy, and the audience can find performances of various directions, styles and genres in the playbill. We have managed to organize the work in such a way that each performance has its own target audience: the audience that will be close to the material, its presentation and aesthetics. This is a serious and painstaking work of pr-managers and the service of organizing viewers. In general, we have a very theatrical city and a very experienced audience, and they are quite well versed in art. I am glad that an inquisitive, “advanced” audience visits us, which can both understand the performance and even write a quality review on it. We also have such a practice - we run a spectator club in the theater, where people of completely different ages and professions gather, talk about performances and write competent, almost professional reviews. These people are theater fans, and I am proud of such spectators. I repeat, we have a very theatrical city, and the "Old House" occupies its own niche in it.

– Colleagues, by the way, call the theater staff rebels (in the good sense of the word). Do you feel like a rebel?

– No, we are not rebels. I would call it like this: we are always on the lookout. We are interested in different theatrical schools, contemporary contemporary theatre. Yes, it is difficult to work in this direction, in a situation of constant search, but I don’t consider us rebels ... But a successful modern theater, of course.

– But what does it cost to rearrange seats in the auditorium and transform the stage…

- All this is a search, the way forward. But this is also done out of some hopelessness - the stage of our stage is small, and with the arrival of the chief director Andrei Prikotenko, who works for large forms, with a new stage in the creative growth of the artists, the “classical” place was not enough for the team, they needed a different space, different scales. Therefore, from performance to performance, we change something, lengthen, expand, thus completely different creative solutions are obtained. For example, the productions of Zuleikha Opens Her Eyes, Sociopath, and The Idiot are completely unusual forms of stage space and auditorium.

– The festival “KHAOS” has become different from others. How did the idea of ​​its creation come about?

- "CHAOS" is also a search. When we realized that we had achieved considerable results, we thought about creating our own festival. We were faced with the question, what kind of festival will we do? After all, Novosibirsk has a wonderful "Christmas Festival", there is a "Novo-Siberian Transit", and we had to somehow stand out. We decided to focus on what is close to us - on the actual theater. We made the first "CHAOS" in 2019year. Eleven Russian and foreign theaters were represented in the program, they worked on various theatrical stages of the city. In addition to performances, we have created an off-program. For example, we have an art residence where directors, artists and playwrights work with young people who want to become directors in the future. Under the guidance of mentors, the participants released ten projects, which allowed them to express their talent, consolidate their existing knowledge and do something wonderful for the theater and the city. The festival, its performances, lectures, creative meetings covered about six thousand spectators - and these are good indicators. This year, in October, we will hold the second "CHAOS", but this festival was made together with the "Golden Mask": we decided to unite in order to present an even more interesting program to the audience.

– The "Old House" has another interesting project - "DISCIPLINE".

– Last year we discussed our plans and realized that we didn't have enough plays for the theatre. Today there are many different drama festivals, but they often feature experimental works, and we would like to attract a young mass audience to the theater. So we decided to organize our own drama competition, so that the authors would try to write texts for our theater. When we announced the start of the project, we received 423 applications from all over the world. The curators of the DISCIPLINE were the famous playwright Alexander Molchanov, the chief director of the Stary Dom Theater Andrey Prikotenko, the theater critic, the Golden Mask expert Oksana Efremenko, and the theater critic Anton Khitrov. Our curatorial team selected the playwrights, and from March to October, eleven writers worked on the creation of the plays. Later, we held readings and determined several favorites whose plays will be staged in our theater. It's nice that two Novosibirsk citizens - Alexey Ponedelchenko and Petr Manyakhin - who had never written plays before, but who coped with it very successfully, became participants in "DISCIPLINE". By the way, our colleagues from Moscow, Kaliningrad and Sakhalin became interested in the project. They expressed a desire to work together, so we will do the next "DISCIPLINE" in a creative coalition.

– In general, the Novosibirsk public pays great attention to theater festivals and tours of Russian theaters. And how are the performances of The Old House received in other cities? How many invitations does the theater receive?

– Our performances are well received. Over the past few years, we have taken eleven premiere performances to various Russian and foreign festivals. Even now, being in Moscow at the Golden Mask festival, we received several invitations at once. Soon we will again go to the capital, where we will take part in the program "Dostoevsky and the theater", dedicated to the 200th anniversary of the writer's birth. Then, at the end of May, we will show the play "The Idiot" on the new stage of the Alexandrinsky Theater as part of the International Theater Festival "Rainbow", which is held by the St. Petersburg Youth Theater named after Alexander Bryantsev. From St. Petersburg we will go to Pskov to the Pushkin Theater Festival - we will show the play "Peters" there. We will return to Novosibirsk and from here we will go with the "Idiot" to Voronezh. This is such a hectic life.

- And , Looking at the profiles of theater artists in social networks, one gets the feeling that the troupe of the "Old House" is not at all tired of such a schedule, but, on the contrary, it charges and motivates.

- This is because our troupe is very talented. The actors have a lot of energy, they are eager to act, and besides, they are very trained. We stage performances by different directors, work with different theater schools, and these are daily trainings. The guys play almost every day - they have a rehearsal in the morning, and a performance in the evening. Actors are imbued with this "training", and for them it becomes a charge of energy and growth. And I don't think any of them could say that he was tired or burnt out for the trips. No. Our troupe is really very strong.

– In one of his long-standing interviews, Andrei Prikotenko, today the chief director of The Old House, answered a question about the status of a “freelance artist”. He said that he would like to “become attached” to some one theater, but so far there is no such possibility: And now there is no such possibility. You see, I have to make an offer that I could refuse, but I will not refuse. And being “another director” with someone is not for me.” How could the theater interest Andrey Mikhailovich?

- When Andrey Mikhailovich just started working in the "Old House" as the chief director, he said this: "I got into a theater that, if you take it and transfer it to St. Petersburg, it will be the best theater there." And it all started like this: we invited Andrey Mikhailovich to stage the play The Cherry Orchard, and in the process of work he saw how strong the acting troupe was, how professional the workshops were. He realized that everyone in the team works for the result, and we don’t have people who would say that it would be impossible for us to achieve any results. We know that everything is possible. And Andrei Mikhailovich noticed this.

– How will you surprise the audience in the near future?

- Spectators are waiting for a wonderful premiere - the play "Dancing in the Dark", which comes out on May 7th. It is being prepared by director Elizaveta Bondar and composer Nikolai Popov. I want to note that the performance will be completely different from the film of the same name, but it will not yield to it in any way in terms of emotional impact. The next premiere will be Andrey Prikotenko's Anna Karenina, which we are starting to work on in May. And, of course, a new “CHAOS” awaits all of us in the fall.

Mentioned in the article:

People:

• Antonida Aleksandrovna

LORD HOUSE, GREAT AND TERRIBLE

"Heat and cold, or the Idea of ​​Mr. House". F. Krommelink.
Novosibirsk Drama Theater "Red Torch"
Director Alexander Bargman, production designer Nikolai Chernyshev.

Alexander Bargman staged Fernand Crommelinck's play "Heat and Cold, or the Idea of ​​Mr. Dom" at the Red Torch, a performance of "great style", the production team of which is larger than the list of actors.

A scene from a play.
Photo — Frol Podlesny.

Together with production designer Nikolai Chernyshev, the director came up with a space that combines the features of a small European city with the interior of a large country house somewhere in the vicinity of Brussels - it was there that wealthy gentlemen liked to settle at the beginning of the 20th century. The ability to settle in the space of a large stage in such a way that it becomes cozy was remembered by Bargman's play "Fathers and Sons", which was also marked by a high production culture and did not leave the stage for several years. This time, the list of specialists of the production team includes not only a teacher-tutor in stage speech, but even a consultant psychoanalyst: Crommelinck's lyrical farce really gives rise to psychoanalysis, because the passions on the stage in their intensity resemble, rather, not Belgium, but Spain.

"Mr. Dom's idea" in the interpretation of Alexander Bargman evokes Lorca's "Bernard Alba's House" in the audience's memory, because the mystery of Mr. Dom is also the mystery of his house: this stage pun is repeatedly played out in the play. From somewhere in the Spanish interiors, from cool living rooms, a large faded carpet has also arrived, lying on a platform inclined at a rather significant angle to the auditorium. It seems that the carpet has faded with time and worn out by the shoes of several generations of residents of Mr. Dom's house. At the same time, the living room is surrounded by lanterns, turning the platform into a square, and from this perspective, the carpet no longer seems faded, but burnt out in the burning sun of Spain.

A scene from a play.
Photo — Frol Podlesny.

As you unwind the tangle of associations, you are no longer surprised by the tango that came to Europe from Spanish-speaking Argentina. The chamber orchestra plays music specially written for the performance (composer Maxim Milyutin), which is very reminiscent of the works of Astor Piazzolla. Behind all the vicissitudes of love polygons one can read not even “the love of people”, but the director’s tenderness for European culture in general, for that Atlantis that is sinking under the onslaught of multiculturalism, tolerance and the permeable borders of the European Union.

The rebus, composed of the words of the play and visual signs, will undoubtedly delight educated viewers. In addition to melodies stylized as European salon music, they recognize the men from the paintings of Magritte, and the wooden staircase in the house of Mr. Dom, turning around on a turning circle, becomes like all the stairs and spans over the railway stations of European cities. Costumes delight not only with their exquisite cut, richness of texture and nobility of color, but semantically support intrigue. Men are dressed in monochrome suits, sometimes even the same coats and hats. It is a favorable background for elegant and varied women's outfits, each of which emphasizes the individuality of the lady or girl entering the stage and the actress who plays her role.

A scene from a play.
Photo — Frol Podlesny.

Musicians move around the stage, not only filling the action with music, but also ennobling the space with their presence. They not only play music, but with great dignity and tact they play the role of musician-priests, representatives of the most abstract, but also the most sensual of all arts, close equally to mathematics and to the abysses of the subconscious. We remember from youth that "out of the pleasures of life, love alone is inferior to music."

In Alexander Bargman's play, love is not only a melody, but a dance. All mise-en-scenes are built according to choreographic laws, whether it is a love scene, a scandal or a fight (choreographer Nikolai Reutov). The duet of Leona (Irina Krivonos) and Odilon (Viktor Zhludov) is a duel dance cantilena in which a man and a woman cannot tear themselves away from each other, entangled in the entanglement of arms and legs, not noticing barriers - differences in age, marital status, public opinion . The text is pronounced as if it were a huge prose poem, which corresponds to Crommelinck's upbeat tone, raises the action high above everyday life and translates it into the symbolically-mysterious world of conventional Magritte's paintings.

A scene from a play.
Photo — Frol Podlesny.

The very idea of ​​Mr. House becomes the Platonic idea of ​​a man. We do not see Mr. Dom, so he grows into a mysteriously significant figure, reminiscent of either Beckett's Godot, or the all-forgiving and omnipresent giant named Sunday from Chesterton's novel The Man Who Was Thursday.

The lyrical farce staged by Alexander Bargman does not exclude irony. Unexpectedly, in this connection, Pavel Polyakov appeared in the role of Burgomaster - he more than once caused the audience's laughter and applause, turning from a courageous and powerful artist into a comic antipode of the great and terrible master of the House. Yes, Mr. Dom is the Great Goodwin, whom the viewer will never see, but he was loved by such magnificent women that he simply cannot but be the embodiment of the ideal of a man, the very idea of ​​\u200b\u200bmasculinity.

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