Collection on the Children's Theatre Company

Collection

Identifier: M/A 0277

Staff Only

Description of Contents

The collection consists of newspaper clippings, advertisements, season brochures, programs, annual reports, and assorted pamphlets, press packets, stage layouts, fliers, and similar materials.

Dates

Creation: 1952 - 2012

Creator

Children's Theatre Company and School of Minneapolis. (Organization)

Access

The collection is available for use in Special Collections at Minneapolis Central Library during the department's open hours.

History

The Children's Theater Company started in 1961 as a professional theater troupe for young audiences called The Moppet Players. The company changed its name to the Children's Theater Company in 1965 when it moved to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts lecture hall. In 1969, the Children's Theater Company started a theater school for students, an accredited grade school and high school where kids would spend half of the day studying academic work and the other half studying theater.

The Company ended its affiliation with the Institute of Arts and the Society of Fine Arts in 1975 and became independent. In 1984, the company ended its theater school. THRESHOLD, a new play laboratory, was started in 1998 which was designed to enlist emerging artists to write new plays for the Company to debut.

The new Children's Theater building, designed by Michael Graves in 2001, enhanced the Theater's offerings allowing the Company to host six mainstage productions per year as well as four additional shows on the smaller, more intimate Cargill Stage. Today, Children's Theater is a flagship theater for young people and families and a major cultural and artistic resource in Minnesota.