School’s Out

School’s out for summer! Still, most families will be too busy planning picnics, barbecues, and weekend getaways to think about theater. But that’d be a mistake this month. In June, Off-Broadway’s leading theater for young audiences is opening its last show of the season. There’s a sneak peak of a hotly anticipated new musical. A globetrotting puppet company lands for one weekend matinee performance at New York’s most famous jazz club, and a theater company in Harlem revives a heartbreaking and educational play about South African Apartheid.

The children’s theater cognoscenti know that New Victory Theater consistently puts out top-quality family entertainment, and its season ends in June following Rain (June 3 – July 10). A production by the Montreal-based troupe Cirque Éloize, this fanciful circus features a team of acrobats vaulting about using such props as giant steel hoops and suspended strands of fabric. Director Daniele Finzi Pasca, who grew up in a family of photographers, takes a nostalgic look at growing up in the style of live portraits. In fact, the title comes from his childhood memories of running wild in the first summer storm. Anyone familiar with this universal experience is urged to go to the New Vic before the theater closes its doors for summer.

Director and book writer Steven Yuhasz is busily preparing an upcoming staged reading of his much-anticipated musical Tusk. One of the “Top Five Picks” of the 2004 New York Musical Theatre Festival, the musical tells the story of a family of elephants kidnapped from the rainforest to perform in an American circus. But, unlike in other children’s musicals, the actors playing the animals aren’t scrambling around for fake husks or other such props. “When we started the show, I was concerned about that, and I didn’t want to do The Lion King,” Yuhasz remarks. “I wanted it to be a theatrical experience where people had to use their imaginations.”

The director has big plans for the show’s future, and the minimalist design can make it accessible to theaters around the country. In addition, the company is currently writing a children’s book based on the show, which it plans to publish and distribute early next year. “Most of the family entertainment that’s developed — like Little Women — are taken from a book,” Yuhasz points out. You can check out the developmental workshop at the The Park Hill Racquet Club in Yonkers on June 3 before it hits local stages and bookstores.

The following day (June 4), The 42nd Street Puppets stop by at the B.B. King Blues Club and Grill to perform a matinee of their latest show. Erik the Amazing & The Shalahballah tells the story of a young boy who’s afraid of everything. In an effort to overcome his fears, he assumes a superhero identity, which gives him astonishing powers. He can fly, and he can breathe underwater. But will he be able to save the Turkey King from the sinister machinations of the Shallaballah and his evil spider?

What could be a more worthwhile message for teenagers — and adults — than a story about how a group of students struggled against one of the greatest injustices of the 20th century? Harlem Metro Arts revives Athol Fugard’s celebrated play about a group of students living in South Africa during Apartheid, My Children! My Africa!. Recommended for ages 10 and up, the play follows Thami, a gifted black pupil, Mr. M., his teacher and mentor, and Isabel, an enthusiastic white student who befriends them. The production runs from June 2 to 12; the Soweto Massacre, in which over 600 students were killed for protesting a discriminatory educational system, occurred on June 16, 1976.

Also worth mentioning: The League of American Theatres and Producers has partnered up with the Harlem Children’s Zone to provide Family First Nights — a theater program designed to give disadvantaged youth the opportunity to see plays and musicals that they would not be able to otherwise afford. This worthwhile program launched last month with Brooklyn The Musical (which recently announced that it will be closing on June 26). Alan Cohen, the spokesperson from the League, reported that 100 families attended as expected, and the program will continue throughout the summer with two other participating shows to be announced mid-June.