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Incite/Insight
Network Spotlight
new words or concepts so the children
can absorb them better. With increasing
frequency, these ECEAP centers are located
at either low-income housing apartment
complexes or incorporated into elementary
schools which enable us to reach the
parents and older siblings as well. Larger
touring companies often ignore this type of
facility because audiences aren’t very big,
but because of our microscopic overhead
and some targeted grants, we can perform
there without taking a painful hit on our
budget.
We intentionally add interactive elements
to each of our scripts. The children love
to feel as if they have some effect on
the outcome or action in the play. At the
end of each of our performances, we
make sure that the actors have a positive
interaction with the audience. When we
perform to audiences of over one hundred,
we normally do a question and answer
session. When we perform for audiences
under one hundred children, we encourage
them to come up and meet the actors
personally. Our intent is to have the
children connect with the actors one-on-
one, allowing them to also see our cast
members as real people, and theater as an
attainable goal. Often, they want to know
what it is like to be on stage and perform.
It’s especially fun meeting kids who
express a desire to act, sing, and dance
professionally someday.
Creating a touring theater, and the tight
restrictions it requires, forced us to be
resourceful and creative. By using our
imaginations to come up with unusual
ways to represent settings and telling
stories, we’ve found we helped our
audiences use their imaginations along
with us. In addition to giving these
audiences more access to live theater,
there is another real benefit to a touring
theater company: by bringing theater to
a child’s familiar environment instead of
having to transport the child to a strange
and sometimes intimidating space,
Summer/Early Fall 2018
they feel safe to respond. Our audiences
are usually more alert and eager to
participate. One of our favorite experiences
that supports this assertion happened
several years ago during a performance
of our adaptation of P uss ‘n Boots. We
were performing at a Head Start Center
for an audience of about forty children.
At the end of the play, the hero begins to
propose to the princess. Our actor feigned
nervousness and hesitated. One little girl in
the front shouted out, “Just say ‘marry me’
already!” The actor reacted beautifully and
replied, “Oh, yes,” and proceeded to finish
the proposal. After the show, the teacher
approached me and seemed excited. She
related to me that the same little girl had
not spoken one word in the three months
she had been coming to school. They were
contemplating recommending that she be
tested for autism because of her inability
to connect with others. Apparently, there
was something about the freedom of this
imaginary setting, the comfort of being in
Incite/Insight
Network Spotlight
Summer/Early Fall 2018
a familiar place, and her engagement with
the story that motivated her to speak to the
character and tell him what to do. There
is an intimacy about taking live theater
into the schools, libraries, and other places
where children already feel at home.
Particularly with very young children, that
sense of familiarity results in the children
being more alert and confident.
Touring theater is not an easy road,
literally. Designing productions that can
travel one, two, three hours or more, be
set up in thirty minutes, and performed
in any size room or spatial orientation, is
restrictive. It’s been especially challenging
to create productions that also meet one
essential test: cast, costumes, props, set,
and sound must all fit into one fuel efficient
vehicle. These challenges continue to
force us to be both creative and efficient.
A touring production like those we perform
doesn’t have a lot of bells and whistles,
but it is often the first experience the
young audiences we serve have with live
theater. No matter how much fun we have
performing, we take that responsibility very
seriously. We feel it is our duty to make
the shows we bring to these communities
inviting, engaging, and as professional as
they would experience in any traditional
theater.
Pat Haines-Ainsworth is a teaching
artist, actor, playwright, and director in
the greater Seattle area. For the past
twenty years, she and co-producer,
Alexandra Clark, have managed Last
Leaf Productions. Last Leaf is a small,
touring theater in Washington State.
Pat has selected several favorites from
the thirty plays written for Last Leaf
and made them available to other
theater companies and schools via
her website, winkingkatbooks.com. She
also works as a teaching artist in the
visual and performing arts in public
schools, private schools, and has taught
and directed students at professional
companies in the Seattle area. She is
currently working with composer, John
Allman, to create an original musical
for young audiences commissioned by
Second Story Repertory in Redmond,
WA. Pat is married and has two grown
children plus two small, furry ones.
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