Five Reasons to Introduce Your Children to Theatre

With entertainment just a click away, it can be tempting to leave kids – literally – to their own devices. While smartphones and tablets may provide hours of distraction, live theatre excites, educates, and inspires creativity in ways that no other medium can.

At Florida Studio Theatre, children – and their favorite grown ups – are able to experience the magic of the performing arts at a magical price. With FST’s Weekend Children’s Theatre Series, families can see four delightful shows for just $20 – that’s $5 a ticket!

To subscribe to the upcoming Children’s Theatre Series and see four enriching, entertaining shows for just $20, click here.

#1 – Make New Discoveries
Theatre is a safe place to expose a child to new ideas, people, and places without having to buy a plane ticket! Kids can meet the fabled characters of Greek mythology one night, and then be sleuthing through Victorian England with Sherlock Holmes the next. It is a great way to expand your child’s way of thinking and foster their curiosity.

#2 – Learn Life Skills
Although the theatre isn’t a conventional classroom, there is still a lot to learn! On stage, characters teach audiences life skills through their triumphs and mistakes. Seeing Scar’s selfishness doom the animal kingdom in The Lion King or watching how Romeo and Juliet express their feelings, theatre shows kids the many colors and consequences of their emotions.

They’ll also learn how to identify the feelings they’ve experienced in the past, or recognize emotions they haven’t yet felt fully. In other words, theatre provides an active environment for your child’s emotional education, so be prepared for them to ask a lot of excited questions!

#3 – Unleash Their Imaginations
Is there anything more magical than watching a play that you wrote be performed right in front of you? For the past 29 years, FST’s WRITE A PLAY program has inspired kids around the world to let their creativity run free, writing stories that echo their feelings, experiences, and wildest dreams.

After coming to see The Power of Peanut Butter & Other Winning Plays, an anthology of award-winning short plays written by elementary school students from our community and around the world, why don’t you give play writing a try yourself? Using some of the elements you learned from the show, try writing your own play as a family and act it out at home for your friends and neighbors!

#4 – Create Something Together
From actors, dancers, and singers, to playwrights and technicians, every production requires people to take on a variety of unique roles. The emphasis on team-building skills and expressing individuality makes theatre a great way to prepare a child for the future.

#5 – Art is for Everyone
When you see a play or musical together, you’re really doing it together, as one entity. Get ready for gasps, laughs, and tight-hand squeezes as you meet some of your favorite fairy tale characters and embark on thrilling adventures – all as a family. Bottom line, theatre is fun! Whether you’re on stage or in the audience, theatre helps your child fearlessly explore the world around them just as it helps them explore themselves.

FST’s four-show Weekend Children’s Theatre Series opens with The Velveteen Rabbit: A Toy Story on Sunday, September 17. For more information and to subscribe, click here.