Imagination and fun: children starring in a play at the Alternative Education Club

The children after the play. Photo credit @ Hannah Slavik

June 15, 2011

A story full of life lessons, fun characters, color, emotions and a lot of dedication. This could sum up in a few words the play “The Naughty Prince and the Wise Old Man”, staged by more than 15 children enrolled in the theater classes at the Alternative Education Club. The play is an adaptation developed ​​by Sorin Sandu after a story by Anton Pann.

Despite the problems faced every day, the children have thoroughly prepared for over four months for the representation held on Friday, June 10, at School no. 136 in the Ferentari neighborhood. The spectators were parents, relatives and friends of the little artists. Preparations for the play took place under the direction of Sorin Sandu, actor and director at the Teatrul Masca in Bucharest and director of the first adaptation in the Romani language of the play “O noapte furtunoasă.”

For an hour, the children left the ghetto using their imagination, becoming in turn, a spoiled prince, a wise philosopher, the “enlightened” royalty, chefs and counselors of the court or the bear who learns to read. All of these colorful characters along with an appropriate music,  and a story filled with meaning, have managed to create a warm and magical feeling, as the little and the elderly alike realized how beautiful and important is to play and set free your imagination, without excluding the formal education methods.

The course and the theater play are part of the many activities at the Alternative Education Club  where children discover and experience alternatives to the ghetto life. They receive support and encouragement so that school can become for them a friendly place, appropriate for their development, the place from where they will start to make a change in the ghetto.

The theatre courses are part of the project “Mentorship for Life” and are organised under the umbrella of the Alternative Education Club, that is financed by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to Bucharest, the Soros Foundation in Romania, the European Commission and the Roma Education Fund.