IN AN EPIC PLAY
produced by
a young stay-at-home actor, the protagonist finds himself trapped inside a
hollow cavern, surrounded by ghastly witches and creepy creatures.

He begins to run towards a dimly lit escape, realizing he’ll need a rope
to help him scale the rock walls. A knotted jump rope that sits idly in a
hidden corner of the garage quickly becomes his climbing rope; he swings
it up and successfully pulls himself to safety. The witches and creatures
remain trapped inside the abyss of darkness while our young hero walks
away unscathed and into the light.

With local theater companies moving their educational programming
online, young theater enthusiasts are now exploring their love for the
performing arts at home while logged online. Kitchens, living rooms and
bedrooms are makeshift theater stages, and household items and toys—jump
ropes included—are being used as props.

But theater is also an art form that’s both collaborative and interactive; it relies
on physicality and closeness to meaningfully tell a story. Do online classes take away
the authenticity of the art and allow kids to fully express themselves creatively? And
how are kids staying engaged and enthusiastic for hours behind a screen?
“I think one of the things that’s very exciting about the online platform is [that children
are] in a home environment,” says Margo Brenner Collins, education director at Adventure
Theatre and ATMTC Academy in Rockville. “They’re being encouraged to see things in a
different way instead of being in a class and that translates to the way they engage with
their environment,” she adds.

Kindergarteners and first graders taking ATMTC Academy’s Beyond the Page class
this fall, for example, will listen to a story and then act it out as a group. This
weekly class will also introduce the basics of musical theater, incorporating
song and dance to help bring different scenes to life.

As kids continue to explore their performing arts passions, Collins
advises parents to also join in on the fun and help fuel their children’s
creativity. Whether it’s painting or compiling a fun playlist for
a mini dance party, the options for creative exploration are
endless. By engaging in small, daily family art activities,
parents help establish a creative safe-space for
their kids, according to Collins.

THE SHOW
MUST GO ON!
12 Washington FAMILY SEPTEMBER 2020
by Joy Saha



“Our goal right now is to help the kids really engage in the creative process and embrace the collaborative
nature of building something together for shared joy,” Collins says. “Just helping them to feel comfortable and
engaged without that stress of performance.”
At Baltimore Shakespeare Factory, interactive games paired with online learning programs encourage
the company’s students to think analytically and expand upon their understanding of popular Shakespeare
plays. In Shakespeare Interactive, participants use Dungeons and Dragon, a popular games that intertwines
role-playing, decision making and improv, to tweak the plots of well-known Shakespeare plays and make
them their own.

How would the story of “Romeo and Juliet” change if Romeo waited to take the poison? How would the
story change if Romeo didn’t take the poison at all? These are just a few questions the theater students
explore during their virtual theater exercises, says Bethany Mayo, the company’s director of education.

In another class, Radio Shakespeare, students come together on Google Meet to perform classic
Shakespeare plays as if they were 1940s-style radio shows. They also write commercials for products or
services the characters might have—or could have—used, such as an assassination service for “Macbeth”
or a ghost catcher for “Hamlet,” Mayo explains.

Allowing kids to work on the script, the score, even the sound effects “empowers them to take
ownership of programs,” she says. “We really do want the children to be as creative as possible.”
Building off of the success from their virtual summer classes, Bethesda’s Imagination Stage
also hopes to inspire and empower children through their online fall offerings. The group
brainstormed for creative ways to keep children active and engaged during a time when they
need it more than ever, organizers say. The results are classes that include introduction to
acting, improv, stage makeup, playwriting, hip-hop dancing and even learning about the
history of film.

Moving to a virtual format has allowed Imagination Stage to venture into new content
and embrace new ways to perform, says Nikki Kaplan, associate director of education.

One new class for grades 7-12 is the International Theatre Exchange, which
connects students with another youth theater group from a different part of the
world and has them work together to create an original short video. Another,
LGBTQIA + Stories: Devising with Queer Youth, is designed specifically for
queer-identifying students and their allies to learn how theater and art can
be their own form of activism. Students are encouraged to share their
experiences and develop an original performance showcasing their
perspectives. n
Virtual theater
programs encourage
kids to continue
performing arts
DANCERS: JONYA; BAND: FG TRADE / E+; VIOLIN: AHMET YARALI; BACKGROUND: SERRNOVIK; BALLERINA, MASTER1305 / ISTOCK / GETTY IMAGES PLUS
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