Where do 'theater kids' come from?

Mostly white, upper middle class families, since are those are the ones with access to the theater (most of the time) and they have theater programs in their school. I work in a very poor city school district. There is no money to put on productions, it's very sad. I was lucky enough to attend very good schools growing up with a lot of money for productions, which introduced me the theater, one of my greatest loves. Cutting funding to the arts in education is despicable, especially for kids who need an outlet for their creativity.

EllieRose2 said: "Cuttingfunding to the arts in education is despicable, especially for kids who need an outlet for their creativity."



Absolutely. I'm heartened at the amount of programs working to make the arts more accessible, but it's never enough to reach every kid who would benefit.

Is there anyone in your school or district looking into any kind of grants or other programs? Even if not full productions, obviously, any form of enrichment or theater program would be a great boost.

EllieRose2 said: "Yes, people do research for grants and are doing so over the summer break. But, there are simply not enough for every district that applies. Sigh."



I hear ya. Best of luck! Are there any community or regional type theaters in the area that may be interested in partnering with the school? I find sometimes there are people willing to give back, and places that are in need of assistance, and the issue is connecting them.

Social media is very, very new in the world in terms of years. So yes, it's still upper middle class families. There are demographics and statistics on this, thanks.

I grew up in a large suburban armpit, but my mom was a ballet dancer so I grew up with a lot of classical and jazz, and my dad was always playing Johnny Horton and Willie Nelson et al, who had a strong focus on "story" songs, so I guess it comes from that. There was definitely a sense of escape when I started to discover theatrical music, I was already a "reader" and had trouble connecting to my peers so combining the language of music, which I found very beguiling for how mysteriously impactic it was (and is), with a lot of very big, far-away ideas was really exciting to me.

I vividly remember going with my mom on one of her work trips and just sitting in the car while she was in the field taking samples, listening to the Cabaret OBC. Something about it seemed like a revelation - the concept of vaulting these words into the amazing, sometimes-ironic world of music was like opening a big window and seeing the clouds move. Even non-musical fans know what this feels like, anyone who's ever felt melancholy listening to Wish You Were Here or felt overwhelmed by the sorrowful catharsis of Hallelujah has felt exactly what makes musicals so engaging and exciting.

I think it's that connection of concrete verbal ideas to mystical, nonverbal music that's so appealing. There's something so explosive about the emotions in a musical, and if you fall in love with that feeling then you just have to have more, and more, and that's how you wind up getting out of bed at 5am on a school day to watch the crappy Wicked bootleg that you downloaded overnight on your parents' circa-2003 internet.

Lots of non-upperclass kids do get their first taste of theatre in school. It might be a ten minute classroom performance of a short play in their reading textbook, or singing onstage for the first time at a school wide assembly. For some kids it starts with loving to dress up and wear costumes and "be" somebody else, and that carries over into finding out that you can do that onstage in a play. Our small church had a youth group that put on a play each summer on an absolute shoe string budget - think "Pippin" with no sets whatsoever and a backdrop cut out of large cardboard sheets donated by a local mattress factory and costumes pulled together out of parents' closets and perhaps a thrift store run. Most kids I knew starting out in theatre had not seen Broadway shows or even any local professional productions. They might have seen a local high school play and thought it looked like fun. I had never heard of "theatre camp" back then - most kids I knew could not afford to go to a camp. But they had seen school talent shows or done a classroom play and thought it sounded like fun to be onstage.