Why New York City Children’s Theater?

Our innovative education programs and award-winning, world premier productions have delighted children for 25 years. But what’s the use of unprecedented programing without unparalleled accessibility? Studies show that if a child and a caregiver engage with theater, the child is much more likely to attend theater as an adult. But the high cost of top notch programming in NYC bars too many children from access. Our Send a Family to Theater and Send a Kid to Theater accessibility programs offer families and school groups the opportunity to engage with NYCCT productions at no cost to themselves.

When children attend theater, big things happen in their young minds. NYCCT knows that that doesn’t begin or end with the show. We create online and in-person activities that engage children’s creativity and questions before they take their seats in the theater and long after the applause has ended. Our digital playspace, Creative Clubhouse, helps young people develop critical thinking, empathetic problem-solving skills, and social growth through fun, interactive, book-based classes and activities. Our book choices value representation, and offer participants the opportunity to see themselves in the story.

And since we know parents are some of the biggest champions of big things happening in young minds, we created our Start the Conversation series to offer grown ups tools and language to engage big topics with their children. Adults also receive expert guidance on our Family Resource Page, where they can see the importance of a trauma informed lens to education and child-care with our Trauma Informed Toolkit, or seek out entertainment and advice from theater celebrities and professionals during our Meet The Parent series.

NYCCT award-winning education programs teach literacy, creativity, social skills, emotional intelligence, empathy, and cooperation. We serve thousands of Pre-K through 5th grade students every year, in over 100 schools, community centers, and homeless shelters in all five boroughs of New York City. We strive to create safe learning environments for all students, cultivate communities of respect and inclusion, and empower students to be agents of positive change.

In order to serve the needs of the children we met in the NYC Shelter System, NYCCT worked with a team of psychologists, social workers, drama therapists, and our own teaching artists, to ensure that the fun after-school program we offered also met their social and emotional needs. Building on that experience, we created The Trauma Informed Toolkit for Educators and made it available to professional educators across the country. The Toolkit shares best practices for teaching with a healing-centered approach and includes the voices of a range of experts in the field; experts who have helped us build a compassionate, sustainable practice for engaging children living in crisis.

At NYCCT, we know a child’s entire world is about building—building new knowledge, new skills, new friendships—and we are never going to stop building along with them. We are proud to create theatre and music programming that is rooted in trauma-informed, culturally-responsive and anti-racist principles for all of NYC’s children.