Membership Spotlight – November 2024

Philly Children’s Theatre (PCT) closed a production on October 27th that ran the whole month of October! The project was a theatre for the very young show called Light Years Away. It was co-produced with the Please Touch Museum which is the major children’s museum of Philadelphia. They had a special temporary exhibit called XOXO: An Exhibit About Love & Forgiveness and we created a show based off of these themes about the Sun and the Moon’s relationship. It was a two person movement dance piece performed with two  live musicians who composed an original score. I led this devised project as the director and the producer on PCT’s side.

It was a very interactive show! Every child received a bag filled with three special props that they used during the show: a flashlight, a bell, and a telescope. Children also were invited up onto the stage at the end of the show for a follow along dance song with the Sun and the Moon which continued to be one of my favorite parts of watching the performance. As children left the performance, they were given a heart token from the Sun and the Moon to carry with them.

This was our fifth show at Philly Children’s Theatre and we reached over 1000 people throughout this run- a milestone for us! We also toured it to some community partners reaching homeless shelters, parks, and non-profit organizations. This was one of my favorite shows that we created at PCT thanks to the incredible group of collaborators we had in the room!

I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately about women who may have composed/written things that men took credit for. Two of my favorite reads lately have been The Instrumentalist by Harriet Constable and By Any Other Name: A Novel by Jodi Picoult. I love historical fiction and traveling through books.

Philly Children’s Theatre is embarking on another devised theatre for the very young piece- this time going under the sea! This show will begin rehearsals in late January and will open in the beginning of April. I am excited to be back in the rehearsal room soon.

A dream project would be a co-production with another TYA theatre! I would love to find a way to collaborate with more companies and get our shows to various communities in the US and around the world.

For so many reasons! Watching the children watch the shows we create is so magical. Knowing that we are creating live interactive experiences for children and their caregivers to experience together is the best feeling in the world. For so many children that we reach, this is their first live show and their first interaction with theatre. Every child deserves access to the arts and TYA is an accessible way to achieve this.

Payton Smith- our incredible set, prop, costume, puppet designer! We have worked on four shows together now and every time Payton’s role looks a little different. She is so talented and she brings us the most amazing and exciting things to play with and create within.

Our last show was a lovely collaboration where Payton not only created all of the things for Light Years Away but also puppet directed and co-directed with me. I was sick for the first week of rehearsal (our intensive workshop week) and Payton took over for this week! It is a great feeling to have collaborators that you can rely on.

Stephanie Jacobson at the Rose Theater taught me what it means to be a leader that makes everyone feel valued!

Follow @phillychildrenstheatre on Instagram. You can email me at sarahgordin@phillychildrenstheatre. Let’s collaborate and dream something up!

My newest work, Lyric & the Keys, a musical I wrote with Jenn Hartmann Luck, closed at the Magik Theatre in San Antonio this past October. The work is based on the true story of how I learned to read from Mr. Hartley, the janitor at my elementary school. I was so grateful to Magik for cradling Lyric & the Keys for years and finally sharing it with the San Antonio community! This play came from the center of my heart and my collaborators lovingly reached in and helped pull it out of me. What a gift.

My TYA students and I have fallen in love with the fairly new play The Amazing Lemonade Girl by James DeVita. I appreciated the script so much when I first read it, but hearing my students talk about how it has touched them made me love it even more. One student talked in class about “holding on tight as you let go” and I keep thinking about that in relation to the play–and also so many parts of my life.

Papakō: The Journey, which I co-authored with Maria Rocha and Genevieve Schroeder-Arce, will open in November at the Price Center in San Marcos, Texas. The play is about two cousins who are on a journey to understand their role in continuing their uncle’s work to repatriate Indigenous remains from institutions around the world. As much as I love the play itself, I am enthralled with the process we are in right now. First, the intergenerationality of the playwrights has been fascinating. Additionally, the community in and around the production is so strong. We can’t wait to hear the responses of young people!

I believe in the power of storytelling. I believe that ingesting a story can impact a life. Yesterday, I watched a packed house of second graders enjoying Luna at the Zach Theatre in Austin. I saw and heard the youth wondering and feeling as they experienced the play. I could hear how inspired they were as they hugged the actors afterward. I cherish being part of a field with immediate visible impact! Young audiences do not lie.

Héctor Martínez Morales was composer on my plays Mariachi Girl and Yana Wana’s Legend of the Bluebonnet (co-authored with Maria Rocha). Héctor is a fabulous musician and a fantastic collaborator. What’s best? He knows how to work hard and have fun at the same time!

Bob Colby. Carol Korty. Joan Lazarus. Coleman Jennings. Suzan Zeder. Sharon Grady. Jeff Hunter. José Cruz González. Jo Beth Gonzalez. Paul Besaw. Susie Margraf. Megan Alrutz. Maria Rocha. Mario Garza. Kris. Amy. Oscar. Juan. Mateo. Bebe. And so many more…You know who you are!

www.http://www.roxannearce.com, roxanne@austin.utexas.edu

Metro Theater Company recently produced the world premiere of An Unlikely Hero by Emilio Rodriguez. The play will be in the anthology of plays for the BIPOC SuperHero project led by Jose Casas. The creative team consisted of artistic superheroes. Special shout-out to music/sound designer, Lamar Harris (thelamarharris.com) who lead It’s Hero Time, an interactive day of activities  for families pre/post show for our public performance. The passion, intention and joy poured into this production was palpable. Watching young audiences process the concept of controlling their own narrative and having the autonomy (with courage and might) to write their own story was powerful.

Poetry and music are  constant staples to fuel my inspiration….two at the top of my list lately have been Ijeoma Umebinyuo and Cleo Sol. The warmth, comfort and light that exudes from Cleo Sol’s music feels like the  embodiment of peace.  Ijeoma is a mighty warrior with the pen, unapologetically writing truths so visceral that the intricacies of my  thoughts are awakened, celebrated and seen through her words. Her writing heals.

An upcoming project at Metro is the adaptation of mother and daughter authors Arika Parr and Ava Johnson’s book But What Can You Do? Ava’s in third grade and the story was inspired by her quest to do a cartwheel. The book focuses on teaching perseverance and positive thinking. It demonstrates for young audiences the ability to shift their  minds to celebrate all the things they CAN DO, while on the quest to achieve whatever the cartwheel is in their life.

Theatre for Young Audiences is the catalyst for liberating, empowering, uplifting, celebrating, exposing, challenging, supporting  and honoring the emotional intelligence of young people. It makes space for belonging and community. The stories have the ability to highlight a situation or circumstance that may seem like an outlier and create a bridge that encompasses connectivity and the beauty of humanity. I do it for my younger self, the shy one who never raised their hand in class. For the ones who never wanted to be seen but found theatre as a cathartic playground for  expression. This work can and has literally changed the trajectory of so many lives. Artistically and personally, the work is crucial, and should be handled with intentionality and care.

The level of heart, nuance and artistic integrity that choreographer Christopher Page-Saunders brings into a creative space should be celebrated! We have collaborated on productions of Last Stop on Market Street and Polkadots: The Cool Kids Musical. We also partnered to devise From Jimmy, To America: An Ode to James Baldwin with his company Nu-World Contemporary Danse Theatre.

Much respect and love to Julia Flood! She has championed  and consistently  provided space for my voice and artistry  to stretch and blossom into my current role.

Jacqueline@metroplays.org /www.jacquelinelthompson.com/IG:mstheatre