Your column on ‘Let’s Not Overanalyze Play’ appeared in our local newspaper yesterday and I was delighted to read your refreshing viewpoint on the subject. So much of the ‘child’ has been taken out of childhood today! It’s time we recognize that some traditions are traditions because they worked with the way we humans are constructed. Kids need unstructured time each day to develop cognitive skills needed for adulthood, but perhaps more important is its stress-relieving benefit for tykes who are over-programmed and shuttled at a sometimes dizzying pace from home to school to sports field to dance studio and back again, often too late in the evening to properly unwind for bed.
Today’s kids need a play-break to decompress. Today’s parents are very lucky that THEY weren’t expected to be winners until they were in high school or college.

Nice. BTW, I don’t know how common it is for modern neighbors to demand absolute silence both inside apartment buildings and outdoors, but the latter demand obviously would get in the way of play.

Regarding that, check out the out-of-print book “Political Plays for Children.” They’re from Berlin’s Grips Theatre (early 1970s) and were translated by Jack Zipes.

http://www.telospress.com/main/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=148
(cover and table of contents)

(Just so you know, the plays are political only in the sense that they
talk about kids’ right to be kids - nothing heavy-duty most of the
time.)

http://web.grinnell.edu/sandb/archives/volume_121/number_11/arts/article01.html
(description of “Mugnog,” - easily the funniest and least controversial - whic was performed in recent years at colleges in Iowa and Wisconsin. Songs include “Why Are Grownups Scared of Other Grownups?”)

“Bizzy, Dizzy, Daffy & Arthur” is about four kids who have no playground available to them and whose neighbors yell at them for making the slightest noise (from what I understand, it’s no accident that this play was written in Germany, what with kinderfeindlichkeit and all) so they break into an abandoned building to play and get arrested by a pair of cops, Knick and Knock. Chaos ensues at the police station. What’s interesting (SPOILER) is that as an adult reader, you might assume that the cops are playing “good cop / bad cop” at one point, but it turns out that the good cop really is just that! Songs include “Order Makes Up Half Your Life” - sung by the cops.

http://www.loganberrybooks.com/solved-g.html
(scroll down to GRIPS and find a list of other plays available in English - though possibly out of print)

http://www.grips-theater.de/
(in German)

Bit from the Web:

“Call it Barney meets NYPD Blue: Children’s programming with upbeat songs and gritty reality is the trademark of Berlin’s renowned Grips Theatre. Atlanta’s 7 Stages brought the Grips sensibility of producing plays which address children’s concerns–rather than the concerns adults have about children–to the U.S. with its recent production of the Grips-developed play Max and Milli by Volker Ludwig.”

Somehow, this same post disappeared yesterday.

I don’t know how common this is nowadays, but when neighbors complain about noise, in apartment buildings or outdoors, that clearly gets in the way of children’s play.

Regarding that, check out “Political Plays for Children.” They’re from Berlin’s Grips Theatre (early 1970s) and were translated by Jack Zipes.

http://www.telospress.com/main/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=148
(cover and table of contents)

(Just so you know, the plays are political only in the sense that they talk about kids’ right to be kids - nothing heavy-duty most of the time.)

http://web.grinnell.edu/sandb/archives/volume_121/number_11/arts/article01.html
(description of “Mugnog,” - easily the funniest and least controversial - which was performed in recent years at colleges in Iowa and Wisconsin - and Bangkok! Songs include “Why Are Grownups Scared of Other Grownups?”)

“Bizzy, Dizzy, Daffy & Arthur” is about four kids who have no playground available to them and whose neighbors yell at them for making the slightest noise (from what I understand, it’s no accident that this play was written in Germany, what with kinderfeindlichkeit
and all) so they break into an abandoned building to play and get
arrested by a pair of cops, Knick and Knock. Chaos ensues at the police station. What’s interesting (SPOILER) is that as an adult reader, you might assume that the cops are playing “good cop / bad cop” at one point, but it turns out that the good cop really is just that! Songs include “Order Makes Up Half Your Life” - sung by the cops.

http://www.loganberrybooks.com/solved-g.html
(scroll down to GRIPS and find a list of other plays available in English - though possibly out of print)

http://www.grips-theater.de/
(in German)

Bits and pieces from the Web:

“Call it Barney meets NYPD Blue: Children’s programming with upbeat songs and gritty reality is the trademark of Berlin’s renowned Grips
Theatre. Atlanta’s 7 Stages brought the Grips sensibility of producing plays which address children’s concerns–rather than the concerns adults have about children–to the U.S. with its recent production of the Grips-developed play Max and Milli by Volker Ludwig.