Theatre for Young Audiences

Corey Ruzicano talks to playwright Finegan Kruckemeyer about making theater for young audiences, how a kid should be a kid, and what he thinks of when he writes from his community in Tasmania.

Sydney Chatman is the creator and director of The Tofu Chitlin’ Circuit, a community and youth ensemble training collective based in Chicago’s South Side. Before creating TCC, Chatman worked on productions from Chicago to Broadway, while also teaching at the University of Chicago Charter School. When students she once taught as kindergarteners came to her as teens and said, “Can you train and teach me?” she said, “Yes.”

Yet after reading about staged readings and their role in play development, I hit a roadblock. I couldn’t come up with a definition that addressed every possible scenario. More vexingly, I couldn’t figure out how to negotiate concrete meanings for words like “minimal” and “basic” that are often used when discussing staged reading elements. Despite the many points of agreement found when looking at various discussions, there are too many differences in definition to develop a clear picture of what exactly a staged reading is or how it should look.

Anne Towns shares an overview of the Alliance Theatre Collision Project. 

When it was founded in 1969, Free Street Theater (FST) was one of Chicago’s first racially integrated ensembles and since its inception has taken its art and activism to the streets, making theater for, with, and by the people. When I asked about the art they’d like to create, Patches summed it up: “We’re already making it.”

Over my time in Spartanburg, I learned firsthand that South Carolina is not a homogenous place. There are all kinds of people in South Carolina, people with voices and powerful stories. A lot of those stories are invisible because of the cultural and political climate that surrounds them. That doesn’t mean they aren’t there—but it means that to those living outside of the state, they don’t exist.

Ashley Laverty and Rivka Rocchio reflect on maintaining relationships during a theatre production

In About Face Youth Theatre’s rehearsal space, there is a cluster of post-it notes on the wall titled “Where I Started.” The ensemble’s first impressions range from “not being satisfied” to “ready to just do something” to “oblivion.” These notes relate to the process of AFYT’s current play, Checking Boxes.

In a volatile, war-torn place, things change quickly and recurring issues of conflict, occupation, and survival dominate—all the more reason to have festivals like this and theaters like Ashtar that persist under such circumstances and create transformative experiences.

The TYA branch of theater for, by and with young people offers a rare intersection of authorship, representation and inverted hierarchies. When the lack of youth voices in the creation of theater for youth is accepted as normal, a power structure thrives that creates theater by, with and pleasing to adults. What happens when youth write, perform and even produce their own work, causing the usual gatekeepers to take a backseat?

In 2012, eleven young theater students succeeded in starting Ashtar’s first youth festival. Ashtar Theatre, which was founded in 1991 by Iman Aoun and Edward Muallem, describes itself as “a dynamic local Palestinian theatre with a truly progressive global perspective.” Their core programs are drama training of local youth through an extracurricular after school program, Theater of the Oppressed Forum Theatre productions that explore “essential critical topics in Palestinian society” and international collaborations.

Playwright Gabriel Jason Dean and Director Lindsay Amer discuss "risky plays", queer characters and narratives, and young audiences.

Some might point out that Noh lacks the excess of Gothic. There is no visual, aural, or excess of story, but one cannot deny the emotional excesses of the tortured soul, the ecstatic god, the deranged woman. The emotional excess in Noh is so restrained that it feels, somehow, more Gothic than, say, the ravings of a mad scientist.

In accepting the single story that "God’s Work" does not belong in a downtown Chicago theater, do we contribute to the silencing of the voices of our youth? I believe "God’s Work" is just as worthy of embodiment on stage as "Our Class" or any other current Chicago production, regardless of the age of the ensemble members telling it.

Dani Snyder-Young writes about the Chicago-based Albany Park Theatre Project, a youth theatre ensemble. She reviews APTP's 2014 remounted production of God's Work, at the Goodman Theatre.

We produced "A Christmas Carol" and adapted our own versions of "Peter Pan" and "The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe". The students reveled in the attention from their sold-out audiences. These children weren’t just spectators; they were the stars of the show. To a child who is constantly told, "You won’t be able to do that," by teachers or medical professionals, this was an unexpected feat.

I have to wonder why Berliners are willing to bring their children to film or theater like "Pluto". Why are they more apt to present for their children’s consideration an unvarnished exploration of what is dark and hard in the world, and Americans are not?

When we do a talk back after our public performances of a Shakespearean play, there's a particular question that frequently comes up. This one question does a fair job of identifying the mission of EclecticPond Theatre Company (ETC). It's also the reason I signed on with the company shortly after it was formed in 2010. Invariably, this question comes from a well-meaning adult, and it always manages to surprise me that it has been asked again. “Do you really think that students can actually relate to anything in this play?”

Alice Stanley reflects on Binary Theatre Company's production of Jester's Cap, by Daniel Pennyway and making theatre that contains feminism and same-sex love for a possibly-conservative audience.

Bethany Lynn Corey offers a reflection and insight on the benefits of visual theatre.

Riley Braem writes about his experience programming TYA, and why it's important to expose audiences to challenging work – the younger, the better.

Courtney Sale offers an overview of the new play development conference, Write Now.

While examining the Paleolithic period, Eric Coble investigates the power of fluidity and permeability in theatre.