PaintBox Theatre

Welcome Friends and Fans,

          PaintBox Theatre is on its way back. Covid has proven to be a huge challenge for us. Most especially because our audience is made up primarily of young folks. The company and I are asking for your support so that, in this coming year, we are able get "back on the boards" as theatre folk say.

          Before you make your decision on making a donation…. (This take no more than 90 seconds.) Please click on the logo below. You’ll get to see footage from a performance of “The Box” at the Eric Carle Museum, fall of 2019.    

          This footage pretty much says it all. Note the attention and engagement of the children. Furthermore, this is not a usual family audience where each child is be supervised by an adult family member. These children are part of a school group, with a single teacher supervising an entire class. Children are pretty much free to behave any way they wish. These children are utterly engaged. They are not trying to be well behaved, sitting upright and rigid. They are flowing with the action of the show.

Voila!                                                                                                                                                                                                            PaintBox Theatre works.                                                                                                                                                                                Our goals are three: captivate, educate, and motivate.                                           This footage is proof of our success.

          Your support is essential. I founded the theatre based on the stipulation that the price of the theatre’s tickets be no more than the price of a ticket to the movies. In order to do that we have to raise half of our operating budget each season.  

        Where to from here?

We will be reviving “THE BOX” in the late Spring as a fundraiser for the Summer season. This summer, we will stage three productions: BABY BEAR, PRIVATE EYE; THE PIRATE GIRL, and JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARSTH. We are also looking at doing THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW in the Fall. 

I will close with an invitation. Along with a donation, please set aside a little time and see a show this season. Along with witnessing your donation at work, I confidently promise you’ll have a whole big bunch of laughs.

Thank you so very much. Happy Holidays!

Tom McCabe

    For those who have yet to experience a PaintBox show, our primary focus is literacy.

          A production begins with a traditional tale or a story from a current picture book. Tom McCabe, Artistic Director, considers the story as a modern child might see it, ever asking the question: Is the story fair? We then begin to shape our retelling of the story.  

What happens on stage appears to be no different than children engaging in unstructured play. 

Our set is simple: a wall with two doors, a window and, above the stage, a 12' wide projection screen.

        Children are encouraged to take the story home and "play" the play. We are told this regularly happens.

Audience Participation

    Everything in PaintBox is based on audience participation. As a way to encourage both participation and literacy, we project messages up on the screen throughout the show. The audience is told that if a message is in yellow, they are to all read the message out loud. If the message is in red, they are to do whatever the message instructs them to do.

    Actors always engage directly with the audience asking advice regarding the story and having the entire audience play parts. Whenever possible, we draft audience members to play parts as well. Sometimes the entire audience plays a part. 

    Often the resolution of the story includes the input of the audience. It is unlike anything you may have ever seen.

Children's Art

    Every production features paintings and drawings done by members of our audience. Instead of complex scenery or overly elegant costumes, we create a list of all of the characters, the props, and the settings for our upcoming production and offer the list to our email list of families. Children can pick one of the images and draw or paint it. These images are projected on the screen throughout the show and include the name and age of the artist. We have a gallery in the lobby of all of the pictures featured in the current production and we encourage children to stand by their art work and talk about their process as artists.     

    This answers to the most often asked question: Why are you named PaintBox Theatre.