Publish at November 17 2014 Updated October 15 2025
In the theater, almost anything goes; the "almost" refers above all to what the audience is prepared to receive. Molière knew which side (the king's) he was on, and how far he could go in his satires.
At school, a place of consensus and good morals, the same principles apply, with the same tolerance that knows the difference between "the stage" and ordinary life.
Regardless of which school you attended, you've probably been exposed to the classics of Molière, Marivaud, Ionesco and, for the lucky ones, Beckett, Miller, Chekhov or Tremblay. But hundreds of authors continue to write plays, and many offer pieces on modern issues, treated dramatically or comically, often both.
When confronted with social or community problems, theater offers a way of understanding their inner workings and reliving them with the distance that enables us to confront them, hence its great transformative power.
The Dramaction site (the educational site for drama teachers) offers just about everything you need to get started in school drama. As it works on the basis of suggestions from its users, what you find there is essentially practical. For example, the list of sites offering plays for download is quite extensive. You can also add Librairie théâtrale and Avant scène Théâtre - Auteurs contemporains - which also offer plays for download.
The contemporary authors on these sites deal with subjects of interest to young people: from the Middle East to ecology and the omnipresence of the Internet or advertising, there's no shortage of subjects or points of view. A perfect follow-up to the classics and a taste for the theater.
In addition to theater courses and extracurricular activities involving the production of written plays, improvisational leagues offer another form of theatre that attracts a very different clientele, both actors and spectators.
The official rules of the Ligue nationale d'improvisation (LNI) are available, as is the Guide de la pratique de l''improvisation dans les écoles secondaires (.pdf), which helps to launch this activity while minimizing the risk of failure. Almost all Quebec high schools now have their own improv teams, and the craze continues. For an experiment that was supposed to last just four nights, 35 later, in hundreds of schools and thousands of stages on every continent, theatrical improvisation is proving its creative and experimental power.
A little time and energy, and we're transported into the strangest and most original worlds. To give you an idea, several LNI videos show fascinating and often hilarious scenes: Mondial de l'improv and Les duels de la LNI
Theater remains an opportunity to recreate the world, for better or worse, identically or differently, but always from a different point of view. It can educate, relax, entertain, move; it can also precede change and open us up to other ideas.
Photo: Éric Robillard - Le Collectif
References
Dramaction: the educational website for drama teachers
http://www.dramaction.qc.ca
Guide de la pratique de l''improvisation dans les écoles secondaires - Jonathan-Hugues Potvin - 2009
https://loisir-sport.centre-du-quebec.qc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/1029560158163328.pdf
Librairie théâtrale - http://www.librairie-theatrale.com
Avant scène Théâtre - Contemporary authors - http://www.avant-scene-theatre.com/catalogue.php
How to write a play, in 16 steps - WikiHow translation
http://fr.wikihow.com/%C3%A9crire-une-pi%C3%AAce-de-th%C3%A9%C3%A2tre
7 steps to writing a play - Devenir Ecrivain
http://devenir-ecrivain.com/7-etapes-pour-ecrire-une-piece-de-theatre/
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