Did I say perfect?
Yes. Yes, I did. And here are just three (of many more*) reasons I believe that's true.
1) The gift of experience doesn’t clutter your kids’ bedrooms.
Okay, this is a big one for me (that’s why I made it Reason #1!)
Families – and individuals – are experiencing increasing physical (and technological) clutter.
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Cathlyn Melvin
“I was in a play once!”
I’m standing in line at a bookstore in my neighborhood, and the woman behind me is telling me her story. She recognized me from a show I did last spring, see, and her eyes light up as she tells me about her high school musical—how she almost didn’t audition, but in the end, it turned out to be the best eight weeks she had that year.
As an actor, I get that all the time. Not the being-recognized-on-the-street thing. That’s unusual. But when people find out I do theatre, so often I see their eyes brighten just like that lady’s, and they tell me about their third grade play, or an annual Christmas pageant, or being in the kids’ chorus of Joseph at their community theatre.
I love these stories.
I help run a children’s theatre called Compass Creative Dramatics, in Chicago, where I live, and we work with kids to create those kinds memories.
My co-founder, Cassandra Quinn, and I don’t focus on readying kids for careers in theatre, and we won’t "Make Your Child a Star." We concentrate on stretching kids creativity and bravery muscles—so they can be bold enough to raise their hands in class, or imaginative enough to problem-solve in real life. And over the course of a week-long program, we see those skills develop, and we witness those memories taking shape, so that some day, they’ll want to tell someone “I was in a play once!”
Earlier this fall, our company decided to start a campaign to collect people’s memories about participation in theatre, and how it affected them. We posted on YouTube asking for video responses, and watched the stories begin to trickle in, both through responses to our YouTube channel and through essays submitted through our email:
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