City Theatre's Summer Festival For Children

BY Jenni Person
Published: May 22,2008

City Theatre’s Summer Shorts Festival, known nationally as “America’s Short Play Festival”, is producing for its 2nd season, Shorts 4 Kids, a series of short one-act plays selected to appeal to young audiences 10 and older. The performances will be presented from June 12-22 at the Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, Carnival Studio Theatre and from June 26 through the 29 at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts, Amaturo Theater.

Shorts 4 Kids! was developed by City Theatre to complement its signature Summer Shorts Festival for adults, and to introduce younger audiences to exciting new plays in bite-size morsels.

The series will feature 6 short plays, 4 of which are World premieres: “The Big Brain on Bobby Martin” and” Becky Solves A Case Like Super Fast” by Marco Ramirez; “Tina Thompson Tries the Tuba” by Michael McKeever; “X5000” by Lloyd Suh; and the southeastern premieres of “Double Mandibl”e by Julie Jensen and “A Giraffe And A Half” by Shel Silverstein.

Shorts 4 Kids features South Florida actors- Sally Bondi, Ceci Fernandez, David Hemphill, Andy Quiroga and Erin Joy Schmidt- to be directed by Clive Cholerton, Stuart Meltzer, Max Montel, and Stewart Zully.

In choosing plays for Shorts 4 Kids, the City Theatre team looked for writing that would appeal to young audiences, and also create the kind of “fast and furious theatre fun that City Theatre is known for. We think our line-up for Shorts for Kids! represents a terrific mix of the nation’s best writing talents,” said City Theatre Co-founder and Executive Director Stephanie Norman. “The goal is to make our summer season more festive by bringing something new, exciting and completely original to South Florida audiences each year. We hope that Shorts 4 Kids! will become another of our company COOL things to do each summer – for kids.”

Added City Theatre Artistic Director Stuart Meltzer, “it is so fantastic to be able to produce this completely original festival of “short” plays for children who may have never seen live theatre before.”

For questions and reservations for Short 4 Kids! please contact City Theatre at (305) 365-5400 or online at info@citytheatre.com.

City Theatre and Short Cuts for Kids! are sponsored, in part, by the City of Miami Beach, City of Coral Gables, Miami-Dade Department of Cultural Affairs, the Cultural Affairs Council, the Mayor and the Miami-Dade County Board of County Commissioners, and the Broward County Board of County Commissioners as recommended by the Broward Cultural Affairs Council.