Переклад, , ! school plays have a long historical tradition. in st petersburg, for example, as early as in 1721, it was ordered that the students of all public schools"should play comedies twice in a year". the plays included translations from the works of foreign playwrights. the teachers at the cadet school actively used theatre for teaching foreign languages and literature. as a result, the students of that school formed an amateur literary group. there was one student there whose works were so good that the president of the group showed them to the school administration and the administration paid money to publish them. that pupil later became famous as the founder of the russian theatre. nowadays, almost all modern us high schools and colleges have some kind of theatre production programmes. their role is educational. such theatres usually present the classics8 as well as modern plays. many theatres also produce their own original plays. sometimes a professional actor may appear in a play, but all-student casts are more usual. the plays are shown not only to students and teachers of the school but also to their parents and those who live in the town. in this way schools become centres of culture.
