Online offerings to include the performing arts in your home-schooling

With the closure of schools during the coronavirus pandemic, many parents are now overseeing their children’s home-schooling. Theater artists and organizations have responded to the need for making the arts available online, with a variety of performances and activities that will delight young theater-lovers and budding artists everywhere.

Show Up, Kids! Online Live! – New York City teacher, writer, performer, and producer Peter Michael Marino brings his hit 50-minute interactive semi-improvised family comedy Show Up, Kids!, recommended for ages 3-10, to your home computer or tablet this week, calling on young viewers to help him put on the live show. According to Pete, “As soon as lockdown began, we began adapting the show for the screen so it would replicate the same interactive, communal feeling of the stage show. In this digital version, the kids get to see and hear other kids from all over, while still being part of creating a show. During these challenging times, I felt it was vital for kids to connect with other kids, and to get a little lesson in using their imagination to create their own story worlds using regular items in their own homes.”

Show Up, Kids! Online Live! plays on Zoom at 4:00 pm EST, Wednesday, April 15-Saturday, April 18. Zoom links and passwords will be sent to ticket buyers one hour before the show. For tickets, go online.

Audible Stories – The popular audio streaming service Audible, a division of Amazon, just recently launched a free listening experience for children who are away from school and isolated from friends. The collection of narrated stories includes audio in English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish, giving young children and families throughout the world the opportunity to listen to hundreds of Audible titles and transporting storytelling. The selections feature age-appropriate works for the “littlest listeners” to elementary-school children, tweens, and teens, along with literary classics and folk and fairytales for all. And thanks to Audible’s partnership with author J.K. Rowling and her Harry Potter At Home offerings, the stories now include acclaimed English actor Stephen Fry’s performance of the first Harry Potter title, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone – the origins of the two-part Tony Award-winning Broadway hit Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. All stories are free to stream on your desktop, laptop, phone, or tablet.

To view the collection and to listen to Audible Stories, go online.

Lincoln Center at Home – New York landmark Lincoln Center is maintaining connections to the arts and audiences during the COVID-19 pandemic with a free one-stop portal to all digital offerings from across the iconic campus. Child-friendly series include #ConcertsForKids (today’s at 4 pm, with Gustafer Yellowgold), the Lincoln Center Pop-Up Classroom (with workshops on sketching, storytelling, puppetry, and more); and an array of archival and livestream performances, some of which have not been seen since their original airings.

To view the Lincoln Center at Home weekly schedule, go online.

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