Stepping Up

Artbarn Community Theater is proud to announce their third season of “Out of the Box Productions” which brings theater to all eight elementary schools in Brookline. “Out of the Box Productions” offers in-house productions designed to integrate theater arts with the K-6 curriculum. Using storytelling, role-play, improvisation, and musical comedy, this program challenges the student actors and their young audiences to deal with important issues.   This year our original musical “Stepping UP” looks at the silent witness role in bullying situations. 

“Stepping UP” asks the hard questions:
Who is the bully? Could it be one of us?

Why should I care? How can I make a difference?

What if I don’t want to get into trouble? 

The play focuses on a rather unique character, Rewind, and his magical, remote control that has the power to stop and rewind time. Using Rewind’s controller, the actors have the opportunity to experiment and replay difficult situations.  They get to see what happens with the choices they make as they try out several different outcomes. 

Which choice is the right one? Through three separate situations the actors not only learn how to “Step UP” and help someone but also to “Step IN” to other people’s shoes and “Step OUT” of their own fear to let their voices be heard.  

We hope that “Stepping UP” not only entertains young audiences but also challenges them to think about their role when they experience a bully in the school-yard.  It is our goal to give children the social skills and language they need to help others in trouble and make their world a safer place.

Casting Call for Duck Soup Spring Show

We are looking for two children in the 1st, 2nd or 3rd grades who are deaf or hard-of-hearing to join Artbarn Community Theater’s Duck Soup Troupe for our spring production, Give Me a Sign, a play about a child who is deaf and who wants to join a baseball team of children who are hearing.

The Duck Soup Troupe is a performance troupe made up of 1st to 3rd graders that is based in Brookline. The troupe meets to rehearse on Monday afternoons from 2:30 - 5:30 PM and will start production of Give Me a Sign on Monday March 13, 2006. Rehearsals are held at 50 Sewall Ave. in Coolidge Corner. We will rehearse for 9 weeks on Monday afternoons and then add two additional Friday rehearsals (on Friday May 12th and Friday May 19th) near the end of the production cycle. Two performances are scheduled for Saturday May 20th and Sunday May 21st.

There will be no tuition charge to the two students who are deaf or hard of hearing because they are providing an important community service in joining us on this project; however, we would need their families to commit to getting them back and forth to the rehearsals/shows. It is very important to have all the children present at all the rehearsals so that they will feel part of the team.

An interpreter will be provided at each of the rehearsals and the shows to help all of the staff and children communicate with each other.

For more information, please contact Cathy Jacobs at or download a brochure (PDF).

They Lived in Brookline -- 100 Faces Past & Present

They Lived in Brookline -- 100 Faces Past & Present is Artbarn Community Theatre's interactive children's project for Brookline 300. To spark awareness of the many fascinating people who have called Brookline home, life-size images of the faces of one hundred historically significant residents were available on Festival Day to use as the basis for mask-making. With glitter, doll hair, stickers and ribbon, the children decorated the visages of such personages as President John F. Kennedy, Judge Samuel Sewall, the witch trial judge, and Red Sox Johnny Damon. Along with their mask, each child took home a sheet with bios of all 100 faces.

Wine and Cheese Reception/Fundraiser   

In Celebration of Artbarn Community Theater's Upcoming Performance of
Seussical the Musical

(TM & © 1937 -1991 Dr. Seuss Enterprises, L.P.
All Rights Reserved/Random House/ITVS)

You are Invited to a Wine and Cheese Reception/Fundraiser on:

December 5, 2004
3:00-5:00pm
at 35 Gardner Road, Brookline
to meet and hear from

Ron Lamothe
Producer/Writer/Director/Editor of the highly acclaimed film
"THE POLITICAL DR. SEUSS"
Recently shown on PBS

$20 donation per person

Signed copies of the film in video format will be available for donations of $100 or more, as will signed editions of the book

"The Seuss, the Whole Seuss and Nothing but the Seuss”
by Charles D. Cohn

Dukakis Joins Artbarn's Effort to Get Out the Vote!

Governor Michael and Kitty Dukakis pose with one of the casts from Get Out the Vote! 
after their performance for students at the Baker School on Thursday October 28th

Artbarn Community Theater is launching this new school program in September 2004 to
teach children in grades K through 6 about the importance of voting and how people
exercising their right and responsibility to vote is the critical premise upon which our
democratic system of government is based.

Briefly, the program involves 3 elements:

1. An assembly presenting a short play (including student actors) about a school
election. The presentation is designed to introduce election terminology and raise
the issues that arise when people make the choice not to vote. The play will
include an election in which the audience has an opportunity to vote and
determine actual ending of the performance.

2. Teacher curriculum packets (one per grade) which teachers can use to support
performance themes. They include age-appropriate activities to help children
understand election terminology, procedures and key concepts.

3. An election box (one per school) which provides transitional activities linking the
performance themes with this year's presidential election. These election boxes
contain all the materials school volunteers would need to run a mock school-wide
Presidential election on November 4th, including posters of the candidates,
samples of the politician's own campaign literature, templates of election ballots
and tally cards.

It is our hope that this program will enhance student awareness and interest in the fall
presidential election by helping them to appreciate connections between the electoral
process and their own lives. Although these children are too young to vote, they are
certainly not too young to start learning how to become active participants in the electoral
process by educating themselves about the issues involved, writing letters to their local
politicians and discussing their opinions with other people.

Brookline TAB: Slate of races on Nov. 2 ballot

Brookline Bulletin: Dukakis's talke about voting at Baker

Archived News Articles
(click link to download a PDF)

School Programs: Get Out the Vote!

Brookline TAB: Artbarn Community Theater growing

Brookline TAB: Children shine on stage during community theater performance