It has been said that the arts can heal. What can this look like in practice? In this article, University of Central Florida associate professor Elizabeth Brendel Horn and alum Elle Koch reflect on the challenges and rewards in creating children's theatre programming for pediatric patients.

The Call

In the Summer of 2022, I received a call that radically shaped my work as an artist and educator. “There are potential donors,” the Director for Advancement for my college began. “They’d like to fund an initiative to bring theatre into children’s hospitals in honor of their mother, Jean.”

As an Associate Professor of Theatre for Young Audiences at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, I have facilitated a wide array of applied theatre initiatives with diverse demographics. Bringing together people across differences through the shared experience of theatre-making, my work has taken me into K-12 schools, police academies, and outpatient centers. In recent years, my work has grown more focused on health and wellness, most recently with the launch of “Mind Matters,” a theatre-based program about mental health for high school students created in partnership with Orlando Family Stage.

Pediatric hospitals, however, were entirely new territory for me. My reservations were many: How could I adequately prepare my students for this environment and the unknowns it could bring? How might we best meet the needs of the patients, knowing their circumstances were similar but unique? How could we innovate within such an institutional setting? Would these multiple demands aid or hinder the educational and artistic growth of my students?
The incredible possibilities outweighed any concerns these questions brought. After meeting with donors Bruce and Jeff Gould, and in partnership with UCF’s College of Nursing, the Jeanette M Gould Traveling Theater was born.

The Cause

The Society of Pediatric Nurse’s 2013 document “The Pediatric Bill of Rights” articulates a pediatric patient’s rights to “feel lots of different feelings,” make choices, and have time to play – all of which are supported through theatre-based programming. Examples in the USA include theatre company Only Make Believe and clowning organizations Laughter League and Prescription Joy. Beyond performance, other pediatric programming helps fill the gap between a child’s experience outside of a hospital and within. Playrooms, therapy dogs, special events, and holiday celebrations all serve to normalize a patient’s hospital stay. Visits from arts therapists and child life specialists support patients in social engagement, creative play, understanding medical procedures, and processing emotions. On the university level, there are multiple graduate programs in Drama Therapy and Arts and Wellness, including the Art Therapy program at Florida State University and University of Florida’s Center for Arts in Medicine. The JMG Traveling Theater differs from these programs through its engagement with general undergraduate Theatre and Nursing students. This transdisciplinary collaboration aligns The National Association of Schools BFA in Theatre for Youth competencies and provides a unique lens through which Nursing students can consider the Healthcare Quintuple Aims.

The Beginning

The JMG Traveling Theater officially launched in Fall 2022, only three months after my initial meeting with Jeff and Bruce. The donors expressed an urgency to see the program realized while their mother was alive to witness it. (Jean died in July of 2023, after the program’s pilot year. Before her passing, we were honored to meet her and to share about the program’s early accomplishments and our dreams for its future.)

The drive to begin programming was challenged by limitations due to the state of the COVID-19 pandemic, as none of Orlando’s pediatric hospitals were available for in-person programming. In our first semester, undergraduate Creative Drama students planned and facilitated virtual lessons based on Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland stories, inspired by our programmatic theme for the year, “Wonderland.” These virtual offerings, while limited, allowed us to begin building relationships with hospitals and to meet the goals of our funders.

By Spring 2023, our hospital partners – AdventHealth for Children, Orlando Health Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children, and Nemours Children’s Hospital – were beginning to open to volunteer groups. It was at this point I realized our initial obstacles during a semester of remote activities would continue to inform our practice, propelling us to innovate. Regardless of the pandemic, some patients will always be in isolation or otherwise unable to attend in-person programs. We had already discovered that versatility and adaptability were key.

To accommodate these varying needs, that Spring’s performance by the undergraduate TYA and Communities course was delivered in a variety of modes. Alice and the Wonderland Parties, an original script written by UCF MFA alum Sage Tokach (pulling inspiration from Carroll’s classic text), was professionally filmed on UCF’s campus and shared via a Zoom watch party with patients. UCF students also performed on camera in Arnold Palmer’s Seacrest Studio, their performance live-streamed to patients’ rooms. And for those able to attend in person, we performed in a lobby space for a small but engaged and responsive group of patients.

Playing with Form

Of all our pilot programming, it was an asynchronous digital scavenger hunt designed by UCF MFA candidate Julia Veiga that began to tap into the potential of this work. Using a tablet, patients moved through their hospital wing in search of images related to Carroll’s stories. Each printed image paired with a QR code, and each QR code took patients to short videos featuring Alice and the Mad Hatter (performed by UCF Creative Drama students). These videos were accompanied by short drama-based activities, inviting patients to engage in the storytelling by drawing, writing, or recording a response. The scavenger hunt ended with a riddle to crack a 4-digit code, which unlocked a box of the Mad Hatter’s tea-party supplies (themed writing prompts, games, and crafts).

The scavenger hunt felt simple, yet it was complex and multilayered. It succeeded because it pulled from our strengths as TYA artists: it was part performance, part facilitation, part game. The experience was full of storytelling, creativity, connection, and play. Through this project, I witnessed Julia imagine new possibilities for theatre, and she inspired my undergraduate students to do the same. It seemed we were onto something.

Turning Points

In addition to the success of the scavenger hunt, key moments occurred during our first year of programming that shaped our goals moving forward. One of our hospital representatives mentioned the need for programming for youth ages five and under. He described how, demographically, the parents of children under five are less able to take off work for lengthy periods of time, meaning many of a pediatric hospitals’ youngest patients spend extended time without their most trusted adults.

As a parent, this felt heavy in my heart. My youngest child was three at the time – and a particularly precocious, curious, energetic three-year-old at that. I struggled to imagine him in a hospital without his parents, as strangers circulated in and out of his room.

Incidentally, after a minor injury, my son spent his fourth birthday in the ER at Nemours Children’s Hospital, one of our partner hospitals. While only a few stitches were required, the experience still brought the stresses that come with such an event: pain, fear, strange medical procedures, a foreign environment, a disruption to routine. My empathy for the young people we served, and their families, grew exponentially that day. I felt gratitude for my own children’s health, for health insurance, for my extended family who lent a helping hand, and for the amazing treatment he received that day. Upon hearing it was his birthday, every hospital staff member and volunteer showered my son with extra affection and gifts. He came out of the experience with positive memories to counteract the trauma. If only every child were so lucky.

Developing Let’s Go Camping!

I began our second year of programming, in 2023-2024, with two major goals. The first was inspired in part by my son’s brief hospital visit: to help fill the identified gap in programming for patients five and under. The second goal was to continue exploring form. Reflecting on our pilot year of programming, I wondered if some aspects were too traditional in form, given our nontraditional space. Our first year had taught us that creative problem-solving would always be at the forefront of our work, given the diversity of patient needs. “We’re theatre artists,” I thought. “We were made to innovate.”

With these two goals, we set out to develop a piece of bedside Theatre for the Very Young. To begin, I enlisted the help of two guest artists, playwright Nicole B. Adkins and theatre-maker Scottie Rowell (Teller Productions). Immediately, our conversations turned to what children in a hospital setting might be missing. Our list included imaginative play, socialization, independence, emotional expression, adventure, and access to the outdoors. As a team of nature-lovers, we began imagining a camping adventure – one that would grow out of an actor’s backpack to “transform” the patient’s room into the great outdoors.

In Let’s Go Camping!, children follow a map through the forest, earning badges along the way. Of course, no adventure is complete without its challenges. Using nature-based symbolism like sunny and stormy weather, Let’s Go Camping! provides young children with verbiage for identifying and expressing emotions.

Given its intimacy, Let’s Go Camping! is loosely scripted with space for improvisation and play. Two important “characters” remain unscripted, the first being the child themselves. The second is each child’s personal stuffed animal (or one we provide), who accompanies them throughout the journey. We’ve camped with a wide array of stuffed friends and toys – teddy bears, frogs, and even Elsa and Spiderman! This child-stuffie relationship mirrors the two scripted characters – Happy the Junior Explorer and Fuzzy, Happy’s beloved best friend. By encouraging children to puppeteer their stuffies throughout the show, Let’s Go Camping! provides ample opportunities for creative and expressive play. Beyond that, the show prompts a role reversal for young patients, allowing them to serve as caregivers when their stuffies are hungry, cold, or sad.

Impact

Let’s Go Camping! is whimsical, engaging, and yes, a little campy. But the potential impact of this piece is vast. I like to imagine the young people we meet growing up into healthy adults. Somewhere among the choppy, vague memories of their hospital stay, they’ll recall something about that raccoon with the ukulele, or that goofy person with the massive backpack, or that chatty squirrel with buried treasures. Of course, a harsh reality is that not every child leaves the hospital. It’s a truth that only further motivates the JMG Traveling Theater’s commitment to promoting joy and healing through live theatre. In the script, the characters discuss how we are all the stuff of stars. Singing, “you’re a star, I am too, glowing softly through the night,” the actors guide children through stretching and wiggling their bodies like sparkly stars. In this moment, I’m reminded that even for those families who will face profound grief, Let’s Go Camping! will remain a part of their child’s legacy.

Initiatives like the Jeanette M Gould Traveling Theater speak to the power of TYA in non-traditional spaces. Our hospital representatives cite the normalizing capacity of this work, with one stating, “Our patients get a moment to just be a kid when the JMG Traveling Theater is here.” Qualitative impact, gathered from Nursing and Theatre student observations, suggest that offerings such as Let’s Go Camping! are not just fun, but can also benefit patients’ overall wellbeing. These moments include a less verbal student responded to an actor’s question; a child who normally used one arm striking a pose with both arms; and a patient who had been reporting intense pain actively engaging for the length of a performance.

What’s more, projects like Let’s Go Camping! speak to the impact of the JMG Traveling Theater within an undergraduate Theatre program. By creating theatre for an audience as small as one, UCF Theatre students learn valuable skills in listening, improvisation, and empathy. Preparing Let’s Go Camping! in a class allows for multiple casts, enabling us to perform in different hospital rooms simultaneously – increasing our one-on-one engagement without sacrificing the scale of our programming. And rehearsing variations of Let’s Go Camping! to accommodate larger audiences further increases students’ flexibility and understanding of traditional TYA touring productions. Student feedback on these experiences is overwhelmingly positive. “Nothing could have prepared me for the absolute joy I would find in this course and in this field,” one Theatre student recalls. “I learned so much more than I expected to, and I am leaving with knowledge and hope for my future.”

The transdisciplinary component of the JMG Traveling Theater also empowers Nursing students as they provide discipline-specific feedback to Theatre students. What’s more, providing opportunities for Nursing students to participate in theatre activities alongside patients supports the development of their bedside manners. Engaging Nursing students in arts-based patient experiences emphasizes the Nursing profession as both a science and an art, and may support their well-being and career satisfaction. As one Nursing student observed, “This experience allowed me to realize that although the work we do is serious, we don’t always have to be serious about it. We can play. We can be silly. We can be human.”

Student Perspective: The Heartbeat of What We Do

By Elle Koch

Adults often assume the children of our society live in a world separate from our own – one filled with perpetual sunshine and rainbows. We think even their “bad days” aren’t all that serious. The truth is children experience the same world we do – sometimes facing challenges that even a fully-developed brain would struggle to process. Their hardships can be profound, and some are forced to confront “adult” realities far too soon.

Think back to a favorite childhood memory. Picture it vividly: Are you with friends or family? Are you outdoors? What do you hear, smell, or feel? Now, imagine that cherished moment placed in a hospital room. The grass beneath your feet turned to cold tile; the fresh outdoor scent replaced by disinfectant; the sounds of soft wind substituted with the sharp screech of an IV; the laughter of loved ones contorted to discussions with doctors. There’s nothing more heartbreaking than a child forced to grow up too quickly, their world turned upside down by illness. Unfortunately, this is the reality for many children.

This is where the Jeanette M Gould Traveling Theater makes a difference. Thanks to the Gould family’s generosity and the University of Central Florida, we have been able to dedicate our work to the restoration of these childhood moments.
My involvement with the Jeanette M. Gould Traveling Theater began in 2022 when I enrolled in Elizabeth’s TYA and Communities class. Little did I know this course would open my eyes to a world I never knew existed. This course introduced us to art that was not only made for kids, but took them seriously. I had never seen anything like this. This was work that covered themes like death and loss, sickness and health, joy and love. This was true art, and art that changed the way I viewed the world. It encouraged me to view the world through smaller, yet wider eyes. Through the eyes of a child.
In the summer of 2024, Elizabeth offered me a leadership role within the program—an opportunity that would change the way I saw myself. One of Elizabeth’s greatest strengths is her ability to recognize a glimmer of something special in her students before they see it in themselves. She pushes them beyond their own expectations, helping them grow in ways they never thought possible. In this moment, she did the same for me, challenging me to step into potential I hadn’t yet recognized in myself. Filled with excitement, I immediately accepted with an enthusiastic, “Yes!”

Now, as the program coordinator under Elizabeth’s guidance, I have been able to play a part in the incredibly important work that is creating experiences for kids to just be kids. Since the program’s genesis, we’ve developed plays, music, scavenger hunts, and so much more. One of my favorite aspects of our work is the bedside performances. For the youngest audiences, it’s story time; for older kids, it’s playful make-believe; for teens, it’s the comforting presence of a friend. These moments—intimate, nurturing, and pivotal—are the heartbeat of what we do.

The Jeanette M. Gould Traveling Theatre offers something truly special, creating moments that remind children of the joy and wonder of just being kids, even in the most challenging of times.

Bios and Acknowledgement

Acknowledgment: Thank you to Maddie Lane and Ineta Lopez for their feedback on an early draft of this article.

Author Elizabeth Brendel Horn

Elizabeth Brendel Horn

Serious Play: Promoting joy and healing through bedside pediatric theatre