This week, we closed The Snow Queen at The Arden Theatre Company in Philadelphia.
It was my fourth Arden Children’s Theatre production since 2016, when they produced the musical adaptation of George Macdonald’s The Light Princess that I wrote with Anthony Lawton. Since then I’ve worked on Arden Children’s Theatre shows as both a composer/sound designer and as an actor/musician. They have all been wildly different, deeply fulfilling, and singularly meaningful experiences for me, as an artist and a human.
Along the way, there’ve been a few useful lessons that I’ve learned about the work. At first, I would mark them as helpful tokens of thought for the creation of theatre for young audiences. But the more I think about these lessons and put them into practice, the more I realize that they are immensely useful in the practice of all live storytelling.
“Tell the truth, without condescension.”
It rears its head most strongly in work for young people, but it’s present in all styles of theatre: You feel you have to make sure they “get it.” You worry that if you don’t pitch your voice in just the right way, hold your body just so, italicize the reading of a pivotal line, or pace a moment with glacial importance, that the audience won’t understand. They will. You don’t have to angle the truth, or dress it up in any particular clothes. Just be honest, and direct. They get it.
“The Audience is the target, the arrow, and the bow. See them; let them see you.”
Everything about this work begs for it to acknowledge the fact that it shares space in real-time with its audience. You ignore this to your detriment. Don’t be afraid of them. They are your support, and your greatest allies. And when you are playing a role they are meant to hate, let them hate you. That, too, is a healthy part of the ecosystem of the play. We are in this together.
“Surrender your cynicism.”
The greatest stories of all time are built upon systems of belief. In what is right triumphing over what is wrong. In love conquering fear. In human beings banding together and achieving something extraordinary. To tell these stories, we must create a ritual of surrendering our cynical everyday mental practices. Hang them up on a hook outside the theater; they’ll be there for you when the play is done.
“Seek love, become joy, truly play.”
You have not forgotten what it means to be a child. You practice a daily act of pretending you don’t remember. When the play calls for you to take flight and spread whatever goodness that is inside of you, do it! Let it reach out to the audience and infect them. The entire room will start to bounce. It’s a gift.
“Never linger, never wallow.”
There is a swiftness to this work that lends it clarity. Some people will say that this is because ‘kids have short attention spans.’ I don’t think that’s it. I think that young audiences understand, and therefor it is up to us to present them with the clearest, most essential truths in a way that moves forward. Your impulses towards something more lengthy are often selfish. That’s okay. Admitting that you’re a bit selfish will help you become more generous. No one is entirely selfless.
“You don’t have time to rush.”
A quick change of clothes, a sprint from one side of the backstage to the other, a seemingly impossible task in a seemingly undoable amount of time: all of these have become possible with a little breath, ease, and trust. The tension you bring to rushing through something will cause more problems than those that created the tension in the first place.
I hope I get to do more of these shows. I hope that I get to work with other companies on creating theatrical stories for audiences of all ages. Meeting families, students, and audience members after these shows and listening to them react to the work has been some of the most meaningful experiences of my artistic practice.