Theatre, in its most universal form, drama, carries a lineage as old as the rites and traditions of the world’s peoples, making it one of humanity’s oldest and most deeply rooted vehicles for transmitting the loftier concepts of human existence.
According to Artmag.ir, any education system worthy of the name is charged with nurturing generations of young people who are conscious, ethical, responsible and reflective, and to do so, it must draw on theatre’s creative power alongside every other social resource available to it, strengthening the cultural foundations of tomorrow’s society at the very moment when children and adolescents are being formed.
Yet in Iran’s formal school curricula, this powerful, trend-setting art form has, until now, been treated as little more than a marginal, extracurricular afterthought, taken up only when convenience allows. The clearest evidence is that the “art” period on the school timetable has, by long custom, been devoted almost exclusively to painting and calligraphy.
This article proposes concrete strategic measures for a new model of Theatre education in Iran’s schools, one built with the support of specialized bodies such as the Theater Forum, guilds, associations, and other grassroots institutions.
Introduction
“Theatre is an art that recreates human life on stage, allowing audiences to experience, with ease, what would otherwise cost them dearly through trial and error in real life.” (1)
This modest definition, which appears, in effect, as the foundation of curricular planning in the entrance-exam guidebook for the country’s Fine Arts conservatories, published by the Bureau of Artistic Planning and Education under the Deputy for Artistic Affairs at the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, is accurate as far as it goes, but it is not a complete account of Theatre: it says nothing of the art form’s sociological, psychological, and aesthetic dimensions.
As Harrocks observes in his research on adolescence, “The adolescent is drawn to novels, magazines, radio and television. Through reading, the adolescent seeks to fulfil an imagined pursuit of an ideal figure found in stories and heroic tales, easing the ache of lost memories and fantasies.” (Nejati, 1389 [2010]: 133) Indeed, the same source lists a long inventory of adolescent needs from the standpoint of clinical psychology at this stage of life: the need to understand culture, social customs and habits; the need to develop an appreciation for beauty and art; the need for self-expression; and the need for self-actualization, implicitly touching on both the sociological and aesthetic dimensions of adolescent development as well. (ibid., 128–130)
The importance of planning Theatre education from an early age, as a means of refining human character and building a society oriented toward virtue, can also be traced in the writings of earlier thinkers. The essay “A Paradox on the Actor,” attributed to Diderot (1713–1784), is one such surviving text. In the dialogue between “He” and “The Other,” “He” remarks: “…it would seem that if great actors are so few, it is because no parent ever intends for their child to become an actor; because no one prepares for this profession through an education begun in youth; because a company of actors, as it ought to exist among a cultivated people, is not, like other professional guilds, composed of individuals who are guided into service the way one is guided into the palace or the church, brought to the stage by parental choice, taste, or consent.” (Diderot, 1393 [2014]: 67)
This review-based, library research sets out to answer a central question: Does the current mechanism for teaching Theatre to adolescents in Iran meet both their private developmental needs at this stage of life and society’s broader expectations of them as future dramatic artists? If not, what corrective strategies might be proposed?
Methodology
The study begins with a review of the historical record of educational policy on Theatre in Iran’s primary and secondary schools. It then examines the role played by non-governmental bodies in developing and teaching this art to adolescents. Finally, in the analysis and conclusion, several core strategies are put forward for improving the current situation, in keeping with the broader goals and macro-level policy on adolescent Theatre in the Iran.
The author makes no claim that these proposals alone would be sufficient to realize the higher aims of theatre education for young people, but they may serve as a reasonable starting point for change.
A Historical Sketch of Foundational Theatre Education for Adolescents
Within the somewhat hazy and imprecise history of public policy on Theatre education in Iranian schools, Mostafa Oskoui’s thousand-page work, A Survey of the History of Iranian Theatre, offers what may be the earliest recorded step toward developing curricular content to familiarize students with artistic professions, including drama, dating to the ratification of the regulations governing reading halls, clubs, and similar associations on 12 Dey 1317 [January 1939]:
“Exactly one year and six days after that regulation was ratified, the Cabinet approved, for the cultivation and guidance of public opinion, that the Organization for the Cultivation of Thought would draw on such means as newspapers, pamphlets of classic and public-benefit literature, public lectures, Theatre and cinema, music, and patriotic anthems, among others, in carrying out its duties.
To this end, government commissions and sub-commissions were also established, including a Theatre Commission. The Commission on Classic Texts, meanwhile, was tasked with introducing ‘beneficial’ reforms into primary and secondary school textbooks, and with cultivating patriotic sentiment within their content in an effective manner.” (Oskoui, 1378 [1999]: 564–565) The author himself, however, attributes these measures to shifts in foreign policy modeled after Nazi Germany.
The founding of the Boys’ and Girls’ (co-educational) Fine Arts Conservatory in Tehran, according to the portal of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, (2) dates back to 1332 [1953]. With the launch of a drama track alongside animation and cinema for girls during the school’s revival period (the same institution that, before the revolution, had been renamed in 1348 [1969] in honor of master Hossein Behzad by the Ministry of Culture and Art, before reverting to its original name upon reopening), girls began receiving formal Theatre instruction from the 1395–96 [2016–17] academic year onward.
The boys’ branch was separated from the mixed-gender unit just one year after its founding, in 1333 [1954]. Curiously, though, amid the lengthy, and admittedly disorganized and scattered, account provided by that same source (2), which is nominally the body responsible for overseeing the systematic education of all art forms, including Theatre, in the country, no clear or precise findings can be found regarding the history of drama education for boys in Iran.
With the establishment of the Office of Dramatic Arts in 1336 [1957] under the General Directorate of Fine Arts, itself founded in 1329 [1950] to train specialists and artists across various disciplines, and later renamed, in 1343 [1964], the Ministry of Culture and Art, the idea of creating dedicated schools, academies and conservatories for the dramatic arts effectively began. That same office, in 1964, was transformed into the country’s first institution of higher education in dramatic arts, the College of Dramatic Arts, to which the Free Conservatory of Dramatic Arts was also affiliated. (3)
The Educational Pathway in Theatre Before Higher Education
To study Theatre, specifically acting, within Iran’s technical and vocational education system today, adolescent and young students have two routes available, both licensed and supervised by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance: the Fine Arts conservatories and the independent (private) art academies. Both allow entry into universities and higher-education institutions either without a national entrance exam, up to the associate-degree level, or through the National Organization for Educational Testing’s semi-centralized admission process, which includes a practical exam.
But the age group most critically overlooked, one that has never been addressed in any codified, systematic way within this framework, is the pre-secondary period: elementary and middle school under the old system, or the six-year elementary cycle under the new one.
According to the available evidence, no clear roadmap exists for properly teaching the fundamentals of drama, particularly non-theoretical subjects such as physical and vocal training, during this stage, which spans childhood and part of adolescence. As a result, what may be the most formative years for shaping an actor, years that could lay the groundwork for far greater creative achievement later on stage, are, in practice, being squandered.
Naturally, families who are attentive and aware of their child’s talents and interests often try to fill this gap in the education system by enrolling their children in extracurricular classes or Theatre clubs of various kinds. But because there is no coherent oversight mechanism to guarantee the quality of instruction or preserve the conditions needed for these centers to realize their true potential, most such children never find their way onto a genuine artistic path, and it is rare indeed to find, among them, artists who have gone on to master the craft of stage acting fully and systematically and to apply it in their professional work.
Under an unwritten rule that has persisted for decades in elementary and middle schools, the “art” period (often combined with “composition”) is devoted to drawing and calligraphy, occasionally to handicrafts (known today as collage), or, in the case of especially inspired teachers, to storytelling.
Yet while learning the craft of playwriting from an early age requires that a child first become acquainted with storytelling and narrative through listening, equal attention must be paid to cultivating the child’s imagination, emotional capacity, and gift for narration. This, in turn, points to the need for reforming teacher-training methods at this stage tailoring them, in age-appropriate ways, to subjects closely related to drama, such as Persian literature, composition and writing, art, and physical education.
Had adolescent Theatre been pursued properly, rigorously and conscientiously under Article 30 of the Constitution (which guarantees free public education through the end of secondary school), then, in principle, elementary and secondary schools ought by now to have a dedicated subject called “Drama,” planned alongside the hours and content of every other course.
Proposed Strategies
In advanced societies, when a need is felt at the public level, it is not only the responsible arms of government that respond; civil-society capacities, organized through professional or socio-cultural associations, also step in to help address it.
It is well known that certain social movements, environmentalist parties, the Greens, in progressive Western nations, for instance, hold seats in parliament and exert real influence over national and international political and economic outcomes. In social-democratic societies, in other words, power is distributed horizontally, across a matrix, rather than vertically. Under such conditions, changes responsive to public demand can be achieved through a streamlined, non-bureaucratic process within a reasonable timeframe, and accountability for the consequences of those changes falls, correspondingly, on each of the individual actors involved in the decision.
In Iran, by contrast, the vertical and thoroughly bureaucratic structure of decision-making, in which the passage, promulgation and implementation of laws is typically a lengthy, costly process entangled in numerous cumbersome regulations, means that for those educational needs of society left unaddressed by the formal school system (adolescent Theatre education being one such case), certain cultural institutions do exist to help fill the gap: some fully governmental, such as municipal cultural centers or Houses of Culture under the Ministry of Interior; others non-governmental but state-supervised, such as independent academies licensed by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. How successful these bodies have actually been in fulfilling their mandate, however, is a question that can only be answered through field research into their effectiveness and efficiency. It should also be noted that those who turn to these centers forfeit the constitutional guarantee of free education, since drama, treated as a technical-vocational or arts discipline, is no longer covered, and the cost of instruction falls directly on families.
Despite all these interwoven structural and institutional shortcomings in the field of adolescent Theatre education in Iran, there remains room for hope: if the relevant specialized non-governmental or semi-governmental institutions (the Dramatic Arts Association, the House of Theatre, and others) step out of their current passive stance toward adolescent Theatre and make use of what limited legal tools already exist, through a comprehensive strategic plan, a far-reaching transformation of theatre education for young people could still be achieved.
The general proposals may be summarized as follows:
A. The periodic election and appointment of legal representatives for “Teen Theatre” by the General Directorate of Dramatic Arts (as an institutional representative) and the Theater Forum (as a guild representative) to the Ministries of Culture and Islamic Guidance and of Education, with the mandate of pursuing this sector’s demands through to resolution.
B. The inclusion of a dedicated “Drama” subject, with its own distinct syllabus, in the elementary-school curriculum, to be developed by the Ministry of Education’s Bureau of Curriculum Planning in consultation with the representatives named in item (A) during the expert sessions that shape the relevant course content.
C. A memorandum of understanding between the Theater Forum and the ministries named in item (A) to supply vetted, qualified adolescent-theatre instructors for dispatch to schools nationwide to teach the “Drama” period. Should the Ministry identify a need, a “Drama Instructor” training program, up to the associate-degree level, could also be established at teacher-training institutions with the Theater Forum‘s assistance, to build a future pipeline of qualified staff.
D. The formation of a working group within the Ministry of Education to review and adapt classic and contemporary literary texts, suited to adolescent readers, into dramatic form, with the results forwarded to the curriculum-development group in item (B). Special attention should be given to national stories and myths, such as the Shahnameh, Nezami’s Khamsa, and Kalila wa Dimna, as well as to the biographies of contemporary national heroes, as source material for school theatrical productions.
E. The use of physical-education class time to give purposeful direction to the bodily training required in drama: gymnastics, track and field, fencing, acrobatics, rhythmic movement, yoga, martial arts, and the like.
F. Cultivating students’ creative faculties through simple assignments that nonetheless demand imaginative engagement, such as performing elementary Persian-language lessons in dialogue form, acting out oral quiz answers, or presenting stories dramatically before classmates, who serve as a future Theatre audience, along with many other inventive approaches that would, of course, require teachers themselves to be properly trained. This, too, could be achieved through the same memorandum described in item (C), with the assistance of Theater Forum instructors.
G. Introducing students and their families to the art of Theatre from an early age by having schools distribute tickets to children’s and adolescent theatre performances, subsidized through the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance cultural subsidy program, via annual agreements with venue operators at mutually negotiated rates.
This measure would also help lift the Theatre economy out of its current isolation and stagnation, and the resulting financial activity would almost certainly translate into higher production quality and healthier competition among theatre companies. Teachers would attend performances alongside their students and afterward assign a simple written analysis as homework, planting, in this way, the earliest seeds of critical and analytical engagement with theatre in young minds.
H. Using art-class time to teach puppet-making (with particular attention to the puppets used in Iran’s traditional ritual and folk performances), directing children’s handicraft projects toward a puppet performance as their final assessment. This would, over the course of the school year, teach puppeteering, ensemble teamwork, vocal characterization, and storytelling and narration, again, with the possible involvement of relevant instructors through the memorandum described in item (C).
I. Assigning students the task of writing the scripts needed for the performances in item (H) as homework. Done in teams of two or three, this exercise would also build teamwork and openness to criticism in the next generation, qualities that are, notably, prerequisites for entering the field of Theatre, and ones many of today’s artists, some quite well known, have visibly lacked. The instructor would, of course, work with each team to refine and finalize dialogue and other elements of the script before performance.
J. To encourage active, joyful student participation in “Drama” class throughout the school year, a kind of Teen Theatre Festival could be organized at the level of provincial education districts on various occasions, allowing the best instructors and student teams at the district, provincial, and even national level to be judged, recognized, and celebrated.
It is not hard to imagine how much such events could contribute to the growth, development and flourishing of Theatre in Iran, a point from which, today, the country unfortunately remains quite distant.
Conclusion
This list of proposals could certainly be extended further, because whatever has been accomplished so far in the realm of adolescent Theatre, however valuable some of those achievements have been, has lacked the necessary coherence at both the macro and micro levels of the country’s cultural policy-making. Time and again, a star has flickered briefly on the horizon of theatre, only to fade from the sky of the education system.
Reaching a truly youth-centered educational process in Theatre requires more than this: it demands a far deeper and more comprehensive spirit of cooperation, mutual understanding, and partnership between the custodians of the education system and the country’s experienced theatre professionals, one that goes well beyond what exists today. Only through such collaboration can hope for the advancement of theatre among Iran’s youth truly grow.
As outlined in the abstract and the historical review above, drama in Iran took root as a borrowed art form, introduced through trial and error by the first generation of distinguished students sent to Europe at the end of the Qajar era and the beginning of the Pahlavi period. No pre-planned educational infrastructure existed for training students in this discipline until the 1950s. Yet in the few decades between the Constitutional Movement’s rise and the growing social consciousness of intellectuals, and the founding of the General Directorate of Fine Arts in 1329 [1950], translators of celebrated European plays of the era, such as Mirza Fath-Ali Akhundzadeh, renowned Iranian playwrights such as Mirzadeh Eshghi and Hassan Moqaddam, and numerous experimental acting troupes and directors, brought this fledgling art form into the country.
It goes without saying that, now nearly a century and a half since this multifaceted and distinguished art form first arrived, the absence of a comprehensive, decades-long roadmap for its development across every national and international dimension, including an efficient and agile education system, does no honor to the wise and dignified people of Iran.
Sources
- Portal of the Bureau of Education and Development of Cultural and Artistic Activities, Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance
- Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance school portal, historical section
- Iran Theatre website, Iran’s specialized portal for dramatic arts, interview with Mansour Barahani (1388 [2009])
- Oskoui, Mostafa. A Survey of the History of Iranian Theatre. Tehran: Anahita Oskoui, 1378 [1999].
- Nejati, Hossein. The Psychology of Adolescence, How to Deal with Adolescents. Tehran: Bikaran Publications, 1389 [2010].
- Diderot, Denis. Who Is the Actor? (A Paradox on the Actor), trans. Ahmad Samiei, 4th ed. Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1393 [2014].
