Child's Play Touring Theatre

Dedicated to validating the creativity and writing of children, we adapt their stories and poems into innovative, fun and exciting performances, educational workshops and summer camps throughout the USA.

Why do we exist?

Child’s Play artistic mission is: to share, encourage and validate the creativity of children by presenting original works for theatre, music and dance adapted from their literature and artwork.  We exemplify this mission in the pioneering ways we work with children and with teachers and how we adapt our programs to the needs of the children has been dedicated to the education and development of children.  We were the first company to realize the value of children’s own writing and to develop workshops specifically designed to produce children’s stories, poems and artwork and adapt them for the stage.  With each year, our organization continues to bring the arts to under-served populations, including low-income, minority, rural and special needs audiences.  Our organizational goal is to validate the field of theatre for young people through striving for excellence in the recruitment of talent that exemplify the ability to bring the arts alive.  Child’s Play synergy of ensemble feeds the continual creation of a high standard of product and empowers our actors to experiment and develop their own abilities as brilliant artists. 

Child’s Play contributes to important learning standards and outcomes by providing a safe, creative place in which children may express their feelings and learn confidence.  From its work in the classroom, Child’s Play sees that such children are motivated to embrace education.  Through workshops and residencies, more than 10,000 young writers have seen their words transformed into live theatre, and more than 4 million children nationally have been touched by the words of other children.  Child’s Play is recognized as one of the country’s leading arts-in-education resources, a position we have earned through our strong fiscal health, the uniqueness of our performance material, our high artistic standards and the integrated nature of our educational programs.

Child’s Play can also bring its exciting programs into your community.  To support our belief that children are in charge of the creative process we have developed our latest project, “Kids in Charge,” which will be leading into our “Kids for President” campaign.  This program is designed to give voice to children’s feelings about the challenges America and politicians face, and will raise issues of leadership, responsibility and civic duties.  Through presentations of speeches, campaigns and mock press conferences, “Kids in Charge” will address civic responsibility and how to deal with social problems in an informed, committed, positive and creative manner.  By addressing neighborhood problems, young people can explore the structure and role of the governing body that applies to their own lives – local government. 

What have you accomplished?

Over our 27-year history, Child’s Play has earned special commendations from the Western States Arts Federation, the Southern Arts Federation and the MidAmerica Arts Alliance.  Child’s Play was chosen twice to perform at the International Children’s Theatre Showcase, and was the only American children’s theatre invited to perform at the First New York International Arts Festival.  In summer 2005, Child’s Play was thrilled to partner with the Auditorium Theatre when they recognized the power of the arts to be therapeutic and invited our organization to produce and implement a very unique and specialized catered for children who have lost a parent(s).  The ‘Hands Together, Heart to Art’ was a two-week, non-residence arts camp which employed the healing values of theatre, music and dance to help the children through their recovery.  The camp was tremendously successful and received official recognition from the North American Association of Summer Sessions or NAASS, placing it as an Award Finalist in the NAASS’ Creative and Innovative Awards Program.  We also returned to the Skyline Stage at Navy Pier for a one-week professional theatre camp, and once again worked with Sacred Heart School for four, one week summer camps.  Summer 2006 saw us return to the Auditorium Theatre in partnership with The Joffrey Ballet and our camp programming continued at De Paul University and Sacred Heart School.

With each summer we are excited to have both the opportunity to be a camper’s first encounter with the world of theatre, and work with returning campers to build upon their acting skills and training.  As Natalie Baity, a parent of one of our campers wrote in a thank you letter to Child’s Play:

“…The professional training he receives in acting at the camps is phenomenal.  The camp directors are such talented actors and provide such a wealth of information.  His experiences at Child’s Play have built his confidence in acting so much that I attribute all the success he has had lately directly to the summer camps.  Thank you Child’s Play!”

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