David Jobling's notes on creating children's theatre in the 1980's



There was a considerable response to PUPPY LOVE: the tale of a dog for pre-school children in the early 1980's. The Sydney Festival included the original production, written by Bruce Keller with David Paul Jobling in it's Sydney Theatre Comapny season of children's plays during the festival.




I enjoyed the gusto with which Bruce the actor attacked the role; he had started off with an idea but had no real method or process he could use to create his work. After talking about my experiences of creating children's theatre with him, he asked me to come in and work with him on this idea of his to create a one-man show for kids. Essentially it seemed that he wanted his very own 'Kids Stuff' a play by Raymond Cousse had been playing with the company for some very successful seasons. Bruce noted that he should have such a vehicle; to enable him to make money off of his work. It was is and always will be, in so many ways - our work - however Bruce saw it differently and that's another story... or at least a thread I'll follow up with later.




We worked at ANTHILL in South Melbourne starting each day with a long physical warm-up followed by a session of physical development. The concept of Bruce playing a puppy for an hour or so required that he work on his all fours, hands and knees. I felt it was going to be important to make sure he was ready to spend that much time on his hands and knees without breaking his back, so I developed a series of exersices stretching his back, legs and shoulders. We'd look at images of dogs, read kids books about dogs, and discuss the content.