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There was no dedicated children’s theater in Philadelphia before Sarah Gordin and crew.
In the years since Gordin founded it, the Philly Children’s Theatre has drawn headlines for sensory-friendly and interactive performances, a pay-what-you-can approach, and free child care services. Now it’s headed into its third summer season with the same goal of making arts accessible to children and families all over Pennsylvania’s largest city.
“When everything is so digital, getting to see something live almost feels rare these days,” Gordin told PA Local by phone. “It’s so important for development, but it’s also cool for parents who maybe don't have experience with it either.”
Gordin’s work with the theater, done in addition to her full-time teaching job, earned her a nomination for our PA Local Heroes series, sponsored by Ballard Spahr.
Gordin is certainly busy. The Theatre does closed performances for school groups, open performances in parks, and ones tailored for children with disabilities. It has partnered with organizations like the Center for Autism in Philadelphia and the HMS School for Children with Cerebral Palsy, always with the same goal: making theater tangible, familiar, and easy. Its performances are held across different neighborhoods too.
“We're creating from scratch with accessibility at the forefront,” Gordin explained of their original productions.
“We say in the beginning that this is a no-shush environment. It is okay for children to interact and to make noise and to experience the show in whatever way feels comfortable to them. We have so many ideas of what theater is and what is expected of us at the theater, and so we're really trying to strip those away so that families feel comfortable coming.”
The reviews are often immediate.
“[The children] will talk to the actors while the actors are on stage,” Gordin said. “You know what's going on in their heads and what they're thinking. … We do preview performances just to see what their reaction is. They're open to it in a way that sometimes we don't see with adults.”
At the Theatre’s next show at the Please Touch Museum in July, children in the audience will be given wooden rhythm sticks that they can use to help activate a campfire prop on stage.
Children, Gordin notes, love to be helpers. She hopes the Theatre’s work makes them lifelong patrons of the arts and maybe even pushes them to become performers.
Gordin was a theater kid herself, a native of New Jersey who was drawn into a The Wizard of Oz adaptation by her best friend at a camp and essentially never looked back.
In a 2023 interview with The Inquirer, she recalled seeing Beauty and the Beast on Broadway when she was four. She “stood up to watch the entire show through the balusters of the mezzanine, enthralled by the experience.” Gordin received her B.A. in theater from Muhlenberg College in 2021.
“But I would say my earliest memory of doing theater would be directing my Barbies and creating characters for them, and really directing them around the dollhouse, you know?” she told PA Local. “I was exposed to the arts at a young age, and so it always felt kind of within reach. And being exposed to the arts, I feel like that’s step number one.”
Gordin continued: “We've had parents come up to us and say, you know, this is the first performance that my child has sat through and interacted with. We've had children come to see our shows multiple times at multiple venues, which is always exciting because it means they want to see it again and again. We've been told by parents that their kids after the show will be playing the show, you know, when they play pretend, so that's really cool as well.”
Philly Children’s Theatre’s next free child care matinee will be held on Saturday, June 14. An Idea, an original play for the very young, will be performed at the Please Touch Museum from July 6th to July 27th. More info to follow here.
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