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Drama is a term generally used to refer to an art form involving performances by actors, either real or computer-generated. These performances can be in a variety of media: live performance, film, television, and so forth.
There are many forms of drama. It may be helpful to imagine drama as an umbrella, with all of its subforms underneath it.
Theater is one of these forms. It is the act of drama, a dramatisation, if you will. Theater requires an audience that is engaged by the action. This requires the audience to willingly suspend its disbelief (to allow itself to believe that what is happening on stage is real, and to forget about the fact that it is not real).Drama, it could be said, is a tool that can be used in many different ways; it has a unique ability to allow us to play, allowing us to be another person or in a situation that we would not normally encounter such as, being a general in a war. This is what makes Drama a great way of teaching,learning, and growing as a person.
Drama has a holistic way of teaching people. Whether it be in a play or by partaking in a role-play situation, we learn through interactions with others--this allows participants to not only learn facts as they would from a book or in a classroom, but to enter the world of another person, to be allowed to explore how they feel about this situation or person, whether it be a war-torn town or the wolf in the Three Little Pigs. Every interaction with another character or situation gives a greater understanding of what is happening around us.
In a drama session with primary children on the subject of homelessness, the class was asked to enter its own classroom, but to imagine that it was a back lane where a homeless person lived. The class was given pieces of newspaper and was asked to place the newspaper so as to represent objects, such as a telephone, television, cat, and so forth. Through the drama, the children began to feel the isolation of this character, even though he never existed. The class added to the drama by giving each object a story, thereby creating a background for this person; the children worked together, respecting other ideas and not feeling pressured, the outcome being that they thought more about how hard it must be to live alone. They broadened their own perceptions of the world. This all occurred within the safety of the classroom, the group, and the drama.
Drama has many uses in today's world. It is already used by therapists, and is being introduced more into schools as an alternative to just reading facts from a book.
If you look at a small child when they are playing they are enthralled with their own world, and through their actions, thoughts and the way they play they learn about themselves, others, and the world around them. Play allows them to act out new situations, try out new ways of doing things and by doing so learn. When people grow up the idea of play becomes less important, entering into the imagination becomes more difficult and the idea of play can go out of the window all together. However this is where Drama has the unique and undeniable ability to help others learn and grow as individuals, as it allows them to play. Through playing we can once again try out situations, whether it be for a job interview by role-playing, or just to think about new ideas, we can also gain confidence in ourselves and learn to trust others. Playing allows us to imagine, and to use our imagination to our advantage. Playing is also an important part in therapy, again entering the imagination and allowing ourselves to pretend and to think of things in other ways, which is why Drama therapy is such a good form of treatment for people who have had severe emotional, and psychological problems.
Play and Drama are synonymous; even actors were originally called players, since they act out plays (as in, toplay the role).