Theatre didactics and Didactic theatre

The teaching of theatre history in high school

Abstract

In the essay I will analyse in depth the teaching of theatre in high schools. I will point out one of the contradictions of Italian high school about theatre teaching: in the morning theatre is taught as a form of literature in the field of Humanities, in the afternoon a theatre workshop is organized at school and in the evening teachers take their students to see live performances. Theatrical literature and theatrical activity are therefore distinct. In Italian schools, the rigid distinction between text and performance remains. I will try to suggest some solutions by referring to recent studies on Aristotle’s Poetics.