CHILDRENS THEATRE COMPANY AND SCHOOL
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Mission Statement
The mission of Children's Theatre Company (CTC) is to create extraordinary theatre experiences that educate, challenge, and inspire young people and their communities. CTC aims to serve our community through professional productions on our stages; high-quality arts education programs at the theatre and in public schools; and access opportunities that ensure our theatre is a home for all families. Founded in 1965, CTC’s reputation was built on a history of adapting classic children's literature and storybooks, in addition to its extraordinary accomplishments in the areas of scenic and costume design. The first theatre for young people to win the Tony Award® for Outstanding Regional Theater, CTC has welcomed more than 11 million people and created over 200 new plays since 1965. CTC is recognized as North America's flagship theatre for multigenerational audiences as well as a major educational, cultural, and artistic resource in Minnesota.
About This Cause
DESCRIPTION OF ACTIVITIES AND AUDIENCE SERVED Productions & New Play Development: Each season, CTC stages a season of six to eight plays designed to bring a diverse range of stories, forms, and artistic voices to our audience of young people and families. A typical CTC season includes world premiere work from artists of local, national, and international acclaim; innovative takes on classic tales; and presented work from artists and theatre companies who are leaders in the national field. CTC is unique among theatres in the United States in both the strength and longevity of our commitment to developing and producing new work. Through our Threshold new play lab, CTC commissions and develops new works for young audiences, many of which go on to be produced on our stages and by other theatres across the nation and the globe. Our new works address complex social issues, speak to the rich diversity of our nation, and seek to challenge our audiences by their unique aesthetic and theatricality. ACT Pass: Low-income families and individuals can access $5 tickets to CTC shows through the ACT Pass, which also connects families with Theatre Arts Training scholarships and free engagement events at the theatre. Student Matinees: CTC’s Student Matinee program offers deeply discounted tickets and transportation subsidies for school groups from across the Twin Cities and greater Minnesota. Additionally, with support from Target, CTC annually brings 3,500 second grade students from Minneapolis Public Schools to a Student Matinee performance, at no cost to schools or families. Theatre Arts Training: CTC's Theatre Arts Training program (TAT) provides skill-based instruction in storytelling, acting, dance, voice, directing, and playwriting for young people ages 2-18. Neighborhood Bridges Programs: Beginning in one school in the Whittier neighborhood in 1997, CTC’s Neighborhood Bridges has expanded to its current capacity to serve students and teachers in grades pre-K-5 in over 30 classrooms each year through three grade-specific curriculum tracks—Neighborhood Bridges (grade school), Building Bridges (kindergarten), and Early Bridges (preschool). Offering both an intensive, in-depth residency model and shorter, more flexible learning opportunities, Neighborhood Bridges programs bring high-quality, research-based theatre arts and storytelling activities into public school classrooms in the Twin Cities, empowering students to become the storytellers of their own lives. These activities, strategically tied to state and national standards, boost students’ achievement in language and theatre arts. In addition, they build critical and cultural literacy as children question texts, uncover whose perspective has been marginalized, and re-tell stories from their own points of view. Early Childhood Initiative: CTC’s Early Childhood Initiative combines theatre arts-based learning experiences with best practices in early childhood education to support the healthy development of early learners ages 2-6. CTC takes a comprehensive approach to early childhood education that includes both age-appropriate learning opportunities, and productions designed specifically for early learners. CTC Audience: Our audience of young people and families is increasingly diverse across areas such as race, ethnicity, income, language, and sexual orientation/gender identity. CTC has begun to implement an annual audience survey in order to establish a baseline for measuring change. While we believe that these results are not fully reflective of our audience, they are still useful as a way of measuring progress. In year-end, voluntary surveys of our audience and student families, that capture an average of 9% of our total audience, an average of 14% say they or a person in their household identify as having a disability; 27% say that they or a person in their household identify as a person of color; and 7% say that they or a person in their household identify as LGBTQ. Families attending our public performances come from nearly 1,000 towns in the Midwest and 77 Minnesota counties, with the heaviest concentrations coming from Hennepin and Ramsey. Students attending matinee performances come from nearly 200 towns, mostly in Minnesota. Greatest attendance comes from Minneapolis, Saint Paul, Stillwater, Eagan, Hudson, Woodbury, Plymouth, Blaine, Lakeville, Saint Michael, and Northfield. We serve an even broader audience through touring productions, having performed at venues ranging from rural Minnesota to Washington, D.C. CTC’S RELATIONSHIP WITH AND TO OTHER ORGANIZATIONS WITH SIMILAR MISSIONS Located in the richly diverse Whittier neighborhood of Minneapolis and adjacent to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and Minneapolis College of Art and Design, CTC is a cornerstone both of its South Minneapolis community and the local arts community as a whole. While many theatres in the United States offer experiences for young people and families, CTC retains its leadership position by virtue of its size and professionalism. We are the only American youth theatre with a budget of more than $10 million and seating capacity over 700, enabling us to present plays with compelling performers and production designs and to reach large audiences. We are one of only a handful of theatres nationally, for adult or multigenerational audiences, to maintain a permanent acting company. Locally, the Twin Cities offers several venues—most prominently, CTC, Stages in Hopkins, Minnesota, and Stepping Stone Theatre in St. Paul—at which families can attend theatre together and young people can perform for the public. While the performance focus of Stages and Stepping Stone is grounded in arts education, CTC’s performance focus is to present theatre of the highest artistic merit. Unlike our peers, we cast professional actors in adult roles and age-appropriate students in child roles. This maintains the quality of our productions, while providing student actors the opportunity to perform alongside professionals. CTC’s Actors’ Equity Association (AEA) agreement is unique to the organization and enables us to create this special combination of AEA professional actors and students. Additionally, while many groups in the Twin Cities provide residencies in the schools, Neighborhood Bridges is the only program selected by the U. S. Department of Education as a model for arts education. COMMUNITY NEED CTC has the opportunity to provide young people with access to the arts, both at the theatre and in their communities. Research by the National Endowment for the Arts has shown that arts involvement positively impacts young people’s academic and social development in numerous ways, including higher academic achievement, better performance on standardized tests, and lower high school dropout rates. At the same time, widespread budget cuts in our public schools mean that fewer youth—particularly those most at-risk for poor educational and social outcomes—have access to high quality arts experiences. A recent report by the Department of Education indicated that the percentage of public elementary schools offering arts education in theatre arts has decreased significantly, from 20% to 4%, over the past decade. As families and schools continue to struggle with the increasing cost of providing young people with access to the arts, CTC is working to ensure that all young people can experience the benefits of high quality arts experiences. CTC’s impact is both local and national. CTC is a leader in providing high quality professional theatre for young people from around Minnesota and arts education for students and schools throughout the Twin Cities. The impact of arts education is especially significant for youth from the lowest quarter of socioeconomic status, who show better academic outcomes, higher career goals, and greater civic engagement when exposed to arts-rich experiences in school. We contribute to the livelihood of artists by employing performers, artisans, designers, creators, and teaching artists, most of them Minnesotans. Through our Threshold new play lab and Plays for Young Audiences, a collaborative venture with Seattle Children’s Theatre that serves as a clearinghouse of scripts and scores for theatres around the country, CTC is expanding the cannon of theatre for young audiences across the nation.