Family Theater Day (2018)

Lula Del Ray

Yesterday, Google celebrated the work of Georges Méliès with a 360° video, highlighting examples of his films. The craftsmanship that went into those movies is absolutely remarkable. Today’s video animations (like the aforementioned “Google Doodle”) stand atop the shoulders of those giants who relied upon wood and nails and paper and glue, and most important of all -- light.

This weekend at Playhouse Square they are presenting Family Theater Day (formerly the International Children’s Theatre Festival) where Cleveland audiences will have the opportunity to see some amazing professional productions intended for all-ages by companies from around the world.

Lula Del Ray, presented by Manual Cinema (Chicago, IL) is a phenomenal accomplishment, an exquisite animated picture postcard, rich in nostalgia and longing and executed with precision and wonder. I sat with an audience of children from schools across the region at the Connor Palace, and after a few moments of requisite shushing, they sat in absolute silence, enrapt not only by the story but the artistry which was present to the eye.

Using three old school overhead projectors, countless transparencies, a guitar and string trio plus one computer keyboard player, and a couple actors, the company told an a largely wordless saga, projected as shadows onto a large screen.

A teenager, stuck in the desert where he mother manages a satellite array, yearns to visit the big city to see the country duo, The Baden Brothers. Their haunting rendition of the traditional ballad, Lord, Blow The Moon Out, as performed live by these musicians, would have made my teenage heart long to be a part of something bigger.

The Secret Life of Suitcases

The other day I also had the chance to see The Secret Life of Suitcases, created by Ailie Cohen and Lewis Heatherington (Scotland) which is staged like an elaborate gift box or pop-up book; a fairly mundane and muted exterior opens and expands to reveal color and adventure and joy.

Larry is serious about his work and never joins the rest of the office for lunch, until a flying suitcase shows him how much more is out in the world to experience. A duo of puppeteers carry Larry through several journeys utilizing forced perspective, unusual voices, and plentiful droll charm.

The first time I was made aware of this annual event was five years ago, when I was at the very beginning of my enterprise in the writing and creation of plays for child audiences. I am constantly amazed and delighted by the effort and craft companies from all over put into developing stylish and moving productions like these, and they have inspired me in my work.

Bring the family downtown tomorrow, several of the events are ticketed and while others are free. But you don’t even need to bring a child to be captivated by these productions.

Family Theater Day in Playhouse Square is Saturday, May 5, 2018.

Play a Day: The Fear Out There

Dr. Jodi Van Der Horn-Gibson

For Wednesday I read The Fear Out There by Jodi Van Der Horn-Gibson, and available at New Play Exchange.

Our month of #NewDayNewPlay is almost through! After today, I have only five more plays to read before the end of April. However, the first day of May also marks the beginning of the International Children's Theatre Festival, which has been rebranded as Family Theater Day at Playhouse Square.

During the week leading up the Family Theater Day (Saturday, May 5) there will be matinees for school groups, and often I have the opportunity to see some of those.

The first year I experienced the festival came at just the perfect time, as I was only just beginning my work writing plays for children. I saw several plays from around the globe and had my eyes opened to just how expansive and the palette of shows for young people could be.

Van Der Horn-Gibson's play put me in mind of those works, as the playwright delves into complicated issues which trouble children and which they may not entirely understand, issues of bullying, illness and the death of a parent.

Two children from a blended family, almost ten years difference in age, come into emotional conflict as their needs are at odds with each other. At the same time, each are coping with the unspoken fears that come with being left on their own due to a family crisis, and the fear that dwells beneath the surface. Children do not understand what is and what is not their fault, or under their own control.

Van Der Horn-Gibson tells this story, however, with playfulness, with color and humor, seeing the world through six year-old Jodi's eyes as she explores her backyard with a troupe of unique and diverse imaginary animal friends.

The best children's plays are those which are smart and open-hearted, appealing to an audience of all ages, and this is one of those.

International Children's Theater Festival (2017)

"I won't hurt you ... I think I'm Canadian."
(Morgan's Journey)

One of my very favorite times of year is when the annual International Children’s Theatre Festival produced by Playhouse Square comes to town. Now in its eighth year, the festival brings together theater companies from around the globe for performances in and around the theater district, in the many spaces in Playhouse Square and even spilling out onto the street during the weekend (weather permitting.)

The availability of this rich and varied banquet of theater for young audiences has been so valuable to me in my work, one of the countless reasons I am grateful to work downtown. We play it very safe with our children in the United States, wishing to shelter them from uncomfortable subjects, choosing the keep the vocabulary we use with them simple.

Experiencing productions from other nations you can see much more challenging work. Yesterday I got to see an adaptation of the book The Man Who Planted Trees by Jean Giono, performed by Puppet State Theatre (Scotland). The tale itself is simply told, with several homely puppets and also actual scents of lavender and mint. The child audience was delighted to be water and misted like plants.

The real treat, however, was the downright hilarious banter between narrator Richard Medrington and a dog puppet operated by Rick Conte which was threaded through the performance. I am led to believe that a great deal of it was off-the-cuff, which is remarkable as their comic timing together is laid back and impeccable, the humor at once witty sophisticated and also festooned with groan-worthy dog jokes.

Dog in "The Man Who Planted Trees."

Earlier I had seen Grug and the Rainbow, from Windmill Theatre (Australia) and adapted from the book by Ted Prior. The many characters are represented by a variety of puppets, the title character himself in a variety of sizes to add a forced perspective to the proceedings. Bonus points for incorporating a vinyl record player into the mix.

Teachers with student groups can be heavy on the shushing during student matinees, which may be appropriate with high school students attending Shakespeare. (In certain cases like that, I wish a few of them did a bit more shushing.) The best children’s shows, like this one, encourage an audible reaction from the kids. Grug was learning to play a drum and the children couldn’t help but stop their feet and I thought some of their minders were going to go off on them when the performers insisted the students stand and dance to the music!

What always surprises me is how much surprises them -- big gasps of surprise, coos of appreciation and delight, and all the laughter. This morning I saw Robert Morgan in Morgan’s Journey (Canada) an astonishingly moving solo clown show about what it means to be human, to be alive. That’s the journey, learning the meaning of sacrifice, to think outside of yourself, to love others.

Isn’t that what the best plays are all about, anyway?

The Eighth Annual International Children's Theatre Festival at Playhouse Square continues through May 7.

International Children's Theater Festival (2015)

The Star Keeper
Theatrede l'OEil, Canada

Like so many things these days, the International Children's Theater Festival (ICTF) caught me entirely by surprise. Now in it's sixth year, this tremendous event brings a half-dozen companies from around the world to present works for child audiences.

The past several years have for me been a crash-course in drama for young audiences, attending the One Theatre World festival in 2013, trying to take in as many performances at the ICTF as possible, and of course enjoying and developing work for our own Talespinner Children's Theatre on the near west side.

I had already composed a draft of Adventures In Slumberland before meeting Finn Kruckmeyer and experiencing the wonders of my first ICTF productions. At that time, I was still hesitant to go certain places with a children's piece. Rosalynde & The Falcon was an exercise in exploring those gray areas we as adults aren't supposed to share with children, lest they misunderstand, or learn the wrong lesson.

The three productions I have seen so far at the International Children's Theater Festival break so many commonly held rules of behavior it is breathtaking, liberating, and in some cases drop-dead astonishing.

Robin Hood
Visible Fictions (Scotland)

Visible Fictions are two guys in contemporary street dress, who together tell a fast-paced but faithful tale of Robin Hood using (apparently) nothing but cardboard boxes, one shopping cart and a surprising number of snack-sized bags of Lay's potato chips. They slip in a few topical references - one has a big thing for Beyoncé - but it is the dedication to the words which give their production such energy and force, especially when delivered in that adorable accent. They pronounce "Hood" like it has an umlaut.

KAPUT
Tom Flanagan/Strut & Fret (Australia)

The next two shows we took in, however, don't have any words at all. KAPUT featuring Tom Flanagan and presented by Strut & Fret is an anarchic and hysterical clown show that had me bleating in disbelief for an entire hour. Flanagan's Chaplinesque stylings were only one part of the entertainment, I was more astonished by how many things he did that you're just not supposed to do in a theater, especially one filled with children.

You can't throw popcorn! You can't throw a child out of the theater! You can't kiss a teacher!

It was endless, one surprise after another. The strength of this show, however, and all good productions, is a story in which the characters are deeply invested. In this case it was pretty simple - our man is a projectionist, and in the effort to show the film, he destroys the theater. Simple as that.


The Star Keeper from Theatre 'OEil took our child audience to an unusual place to tell a story simple to describe but amazing to see. This is a puppet show of a worm-like creature and its relationship with a star. It's a dark show, and by that I mean dimly lit to highlight the puppets and nothing else.

Our matinee audience was honest is their reactions, which is a good thing, I think. At the outset a wizened old man tends to a light socket and a child observed, "This is a scary part." I didn't find it scary, but then I realized my own son would probably have said the same thing not too long ago. Dark + strange = scary. But it's not scary at all, it's a gentle production, if bizarre, the stuff of dreams.

One request, though. Adults: teachers, parents, and otherwise ... stop shushing the children. Their honest reactions to the work are why these artists have come here, from all over the world. Your attempts to silence them are, how shall I put it? It is simply not appropriate behavior in a theater.

The Sixth Annual International Children's Theater Festival continues at Playhouse Square through May 10, 2015.

One Theatre World 2013

The One Theatre World conference came to Cleveland last week. Formerly a once every three year festival -- now biennial -- and produced by Theatre for Young Audiences/USA, OTW2013 coincided (on purpose) with the International Children's Festival at PlayhouseSquare.

I wasn't actually registered to attend the conference, I was fortunate enough to get an "all-entry" pass because I'm am a well-connected Cleveland writer person, and frankly I have been so wrapped up in annual gala benefit business and fringe festival business and two kids playing two instruments and playing on three different teams business to really notice the difference between the ICF and the OTW, anyway, I thought they were related not merely co-incident.

Regardless, by the end of the week, while I had experienced a couple great, international children's show, I saw all these excited theater people from everywhere walking places together with their Big Red Passes hanging from their necks, and the weather was perfect (unlike this weekend) and once more in my life I had the distinct and sinking impression that I was missing something.

On Friday morning I had the great good fortune to be crossing Euclid Avenue when I was and saw this guy who looked sixteen years older than a guy I knew sixteen years ago and the name "Marty" popped into my head and I looked at his Big Red Tag and it said "Marty" in large, readble letters, and I called out, "Marty?!" and recognized me, too, right away.

The first long-form improv we presented at Dobama's Night Kitchen was The Realistic World, and Marty was one of seven housemates in Tremont (people got confused ... no one was actually living together in a house in Tremont, it was a play we improvised.) The last I had heard of Marty, my wife and I were on the last night of our honeymoon in Fairbanks, Alaska. I saw a poster for a children's show posted in the Pump House. This play was directed by Marty Johnson. He is now Education Director for iTheatrics, the folks who edit and license all those "Jr." versions of hit Broadway shows.

This is the kind of thing I mean when I have the creepy feeling I am missing something. I knew there were workshops going on, but I just couldn't make time for those, but I was missing all the new, exciting people in my midst. Lucky for me to run into him, that was great catching up, and he introduced me to a few others and then I had to get back to my business in the Bulkley Building and that was okay.

But I cancelled previous plans for Friday evening, and the wife and I came downtown to skull around with our VIP passes. We stuck our noses into The Girl Who Forgot to Sing Badly so she could see what that was all about and then joined, well, everybody else to see ZooZoo. The Ohio Theatre was packed.

My goal was to catch Finegan Kruckemeyer's closing, keynote address that evening. Staff was scrambling to get everyone a seat, including all those like me (and many, many others) who had passes but no reservations. We were seated in a block of OWT participants -- right in front of Marty, as it turned out, and next to some kind folk from Pittsburgh, and behind Tim and Chris from Alvin Sputnik but I wondered allowed, given to delayed curtain, as to whether it were possible we might miss the address? The man sitting next to me motioned directed my attention to seats behind and to the right observing, "Fin's sitting right there, they can't start without him!"

If there is one thing I regret in life, it is that I have not had enough mentors. I cannot remember who gave me that advice, or when, but "Find a mentor, attach yourself to them, be near them, apprentice yourself," was once recommended and more than most I know I not only ignored this advice, but actively strove to achieve great things entirely unschooled and ignorant.

Joyce was a great inspiration to me, and I learned many things from her about management, communication, hard work, and unapologetically maintaining core beliefs. Daniel taught me honesty, responsibility, loyalty, dignity and joy. There were also many college professors and instructors who wisdom I heard, but failed to deeply plumb.

So having the opportunity to enjoin, engage and listen is to me (especially at this point in my life) some hard to come by by also deeply treasured. Attending a conference is like searching for a parent I never had.

Fin.

Last Spring (as I noted last week) Fin led a session on playwriting which was truly eye-opening, and I had high hopes for his address which were entirely satisfied. How much can you learn in one 45-minute lecture? An awful lot, actually, when the speaker is well-prepared, interesting and impassioned, as Fin was. His main point, which was not coincidentally the summation of my last post on the subject, is that as creators of children's drama (a subset of children's literature) many have become to concerned with the why or the how, instead of being solely immersed in the what.

As one whose occupation is in theater education -- and for the last four years not merely the facilitation of theater education, but one who writes grant proposals for corporate, government and foundation support of such work -- I knew of what he spoke. The justification for children's theater can be the wet blanket thrown over the art of simply telling the story, letting the story happen, after which someone else can determine its significance, its learning potential, how it satisfies key educational benchmarks for achievement.

Speaking from notes but flowing as though these thoughts were spooling out from the top of his head, Fin launched into numerous lists of companies and artists from around the world who satisfy the what in their work, and unreeled a panoply of premises for stories like he was that Dream-tortured author from Sandman.

We had the opportunity to chat only briefly following the talk, there was a babysitter to release, but I promised to send him the revised draft of Slumberland once I get to it, which I hope is sooner than later. Last week's reading, the variety of shows I had experienced last week, and Fin's closing address made me more confident in this new work, which is good. It would have only been too easy to look at the professional delights before me and think, Good Lord, what is this piece of crap I have spent so much time on? I am glad that this is not the case.

Recently, my daughter's violin teacher moved from the Heights to Orange. The girl self-started, almost three years ago she asked if she could learn the violin -- which was odd because my wife and I do not have an instrument ... true, on my wife's side there are some fine musicians -- and we said, oh, ah, of course. She is a dedicated pupil and her mother has added to her world of responsibilities the care and tending of daily practice.

Her teacher is quite excellent, and while we were at first a little concerned about the new, forty-five minute drive to lessons each week, it was really only twice the amount of time it took to get her across town. One family friend suggested we find someone else nearby, that our schedules are so full as it is to be worth the trip.

I would have imagined that ten would have been too young to already be advising my girl to "find a mentor". Having already found one, however, the least we can do is drive her there.

International Children's Theater Festival (2013)

Last time I was Fringing in New York, I missed an opportunity to see The Adventures of Alvin Sputnik, Deep Sea Explorer. There were three companies that had arrived together from Perth, Australia, Tim Watts' Weeping Spoon, producer of Alvin Sputnik was one. Mark Storen (see below), whose A Drunken Cabaret I did get to see was another.

Watts' show received some very nice press, including an interview in The NY Times, and by the time it had come to my attention I was either scheduled for the same time or it had sold out. So I was surprised and delighted to see that it was on the slate of productions presented as part of this, the fourth year of PlayhouseSquare's International Children's Festival, a fantastic celebration of live theater arts which truly explore the vast possibilities inherent in and unique to live performance.

The festival proper opens today, May 9 and runs through Saturday but there are also school matinees, so yesterday I had an opportunity to sneak in and share this astonishing "solo" show with a roomful of kids that looked about my son's age.

The Adventures of Alvin Sputnik, Deep Sea Explorer

I used italics around the word "solo" because though Watts is the featured person -- the guy with the recognizable face -- he works with an small, experienced team of artists and puppeteers to make it all work. And I use the word astonishing not only because of the delightful and surprising use of puppets, screens, video, live music, sound effects and darkness, but also subject matter which is at once reassuring, sweet, loving, and very, very bleak.

Let me put it this way, without giving away too much -- the premise is based on ecological disaster on a global scale. That's at the beginning. But following the protagonist as he manages and copes with his world sets in motion a melancholy hero's journey driven entirely by love. There is also an eight-inch tall hand puppet in a diving suit that can breakdance.

Sitting in this darkened room, as one with children, and one who works with children, I was at once thrilled and terrified. Can you actually do this? Sure, most of these kids have seen The Avengers, destroying things is part of their daily roleplay. But this is different, isn't it? Or is it. The very real threat posed by global warming and rising sea levels. Will there be nightmares? Or resolution to change things? Maybe both, who knows. Is it an artist's job to worry too much about what will scare the children, or just to stay honest, be clear, and be gentle.

Because that's, at last, what I saw in Alvin Sputnik. It is honest, it is clear, and it is gentle.

The Girl Who Forgot To Sing Badly

Yesterday, we saw The Girl Who Forgot To Sing Badly, written by the Tasmanian Finegan Kruckemeyer and produced by the Irish TheatreLovett, which is not gentle, but rather brash, velocious, and has really great hair. Louis Lovett spins a yarn -- well, I mean, he unpacks it out of many boxes and then spins it, which is a terrible thing for me to have done to a metaphor -- and revels in his own personal awesomeness.

Though his work is very physical, he exhibits tremendous focus. It is very clear, inspiring movement work, and an inspiration to men like me, who do not think of themselves as lithe or graceful. I thought, I can do that. I really should try. Do not fear the clown, but set him free.

Because even though the production features a great set, comprised of boxes within boxes within boxes (even Lovett's costume is a box within a box within a box, if you follow me) and though Kruckemeyer has crafted an irresistible story (another box w/in a box which, like Alvin Sputnik features end-of-the-world elements) it is the direct, clear, concise, animated, fantastic and outsized storytelling of Lovett upon which the success of the piece rests.

These two pieces of children's theater -- which can be enjoyed by absolutely anyone, really -- acknowledge and honor their undersized audiences in two different ways. In Girl Who Forgot it is the weight of detail and demand for attention that puts kids on notice that there will be no dumbing-down, keep up, children, you will get this, and in Alvin Sputnik the almost absolute absence of narration for long stretches of the production where we all just watched spellbound as wonderful and even frightening things developed and played out in elegant ways.

But seriously, what does this all have to do with David? I am so glad you asked. On Monday evening I had the opportunity to hear Adventures In Slumberland read for the Playwrights' Unit. In general it was a reassuring success, most comments were very positive. The crew that had assembled to rehearse once and then read were instrumental in the reading coming off all right -- especially as there are several turn-of-the-last-century melodies which they learned on their own time, primarily by looking up ancient wax cylinder recordings on YouTube.

Having never before written more than something like a short sketch for children, I wanted to try something special and new, unpredictable ... but not so odd as to be incomprehensible. What are the lines? Where are the boundaries? How much will I allow myself to trust the child? Readers of this blog may expect to read more grappling in the months to come.

As should now be abundantly clear, a children's show can be anything, about anything, anywhere, or everywhere, or nowhere. Kruckemeyer himself held a workshop here a year ago (thanks Deb for chronicling his writing exercises) which cracked open my perception of what writing can be and how a story can be successfully built.


Tim Watts, Finegan Kruckemeyer and I have one mutual friend: Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Mark Storen. NOT SAFE FOR CHILDREN