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Theatres for Young Audiences Champion New Work

The DC theatres that consistently commission and produce the bulk of the area’s new work are ones that might not be on everyone’s radar: the liveliest are the ones which program for the youth market. Adventure Theatre, Imagination Stage and The Kennedy Center’s Theatre for Young Audiences are all dedicated to creating exciting new work for the stage that challenges and respects its audience. Each continues to provide ample opportunities for playwrights, composers and devisers in a field that is often starved for chances to collaborate.

DG member Michael Bobbitt, Artistic Director of Adventure Theatre in Glen Echo, MD, tends to focus on adaptations that have name recognition. “I spend weeks out of my year looking for book titles that have marquee value. The New York Times, library lists, school curricula, TV shows, comic strips… It can take anywhere from three months to five years to secure the rights to some of these projects. But once the rights are ours, our development process will take from six months to a year.”

Artistic Director and DG member Janet Stanford reports with understandable pride that Imagination Stage has produced two new plays on its main stage every season for the past 25 years, with several exciting new projects in the pipeline; from a new piece about the firsthand experiences of refugee children (Oyeme, by Miriam Gonzalez) to Guild member Psalmayene 24’s hip-hop update of The Freshest Snow Whyte. “Our challenge with the artists we commission is where we find the connection between the project the theatre wants and what the playwright wants to write,” Stanford says. “Our ideas tend to come from within our institution, then we pair up with the artists. Typically the development process is two years because we like to give the writer a development week during the season before the play gets produced.  The development process takes whatever form is most helpful to the playwright.”

“One of my biggest theories about being a producer,” says Kim Peter Kovac, Director of Programming for Young Audiences at The Kennedy Center, “is to find good people and stay out of their way. In my experience, 95% of the time that’s the best policy. So my job is to ask ‘How can I help you do your work?’ I try to be supportive but not micromanage.”

“The goal of my work is to get kids into the theatre, and give them an amazing, memorable experience with the hope that they will become lifelong audience members,” says Bobbitt, whose recent successes include an epic re-telling of Jumanji for the stage by Sandra Eskin and an Asian-infused The Emperor’s Nightingale by Damon Chua. “We want it to be memorable. And entertaining doesn’t mean silly or wacky, but meaningful, with conflict and tension, and with well-dramatized characters solving their own problems. If it’s done well, kids will get it.”

Kovac agrees with what seems to be a common theme amongst these seasoned playmakers: “We always start with story. There is a lot of work in TYA right now that wants to teach lessons, but we try to tell stories and develop characters that audiences can empathize with. Theatre is a greenhouse for empathy. We want to make our audiences discover something they might not know.”

“We look for stories that respect children, that come from the heart of our organization, that reflect important childhood issues,” says Stanford. “Serious intent is important, even when looking at a play that really needs to sell. You need the support of everyone in the organization to get behind the story we are telling.”

As anyone who has written for young audiences will tell you, TYA demands tight, disciplined structure and efficient, streamlined storytelling. And none of these artistic leaders in the field shy away from issue or style-driven work. Kovac touts the Kennedy Center’s recent success with Guild member Julie Jensen’s Mockingbird, about a young person on the autism spectrum, and Stanford is proud of the upcoming Bollywood version of The Prince and the Pauper by Anu Yadev. “We don’t care if you’ve done TYA work before or not, and we definitely don’t want writers with preconceptions about what TYA is supposed to be,” says Kovac. “We want stories the writers care about. You can’t talk down to this audience ever.”

“There’s no room for fluff,” agrees Bobbitt. “You have to have a well-written play or you will lose this audience.”

Such nobility of purpose and respect for children infuses all of the TYA work done in DC, a region already flooded with a high level of quality new work for the stage. But one of the most profound comments about TYA came from Kovac when he said, “There isn’t a deep canon of excellent work for TYA. It is incumbent upon us to make that canon.” And with such powerful commitment, demonstrated in DC for decades now, the health of that canon is vibrant indeed.

acurrin@dramatistsguild.com