Community Programs
Mainstage Season
The Coterie, a professional Equity theatre, is among the top five theatres serving families and young audiences in the United States, according to TIME magazine: “groundbreaking… one of the nation’s most respected.” Travel+Leisure magazine’s top ten list of children’s theatres described the Coterie as “a theatre that resolutely refuses to talk down to its audience.”
The mainstage season consists of six full productions with something for every age. The emphasis is often on new or recent works.
Through ingenious programming, the Coterie plays a vital role in the greater Kansas City area developing new generations of audiences for the performing arts with plays that reach a variety of age groups. In 1995, the prestigious Lila Wallace Reader’s Digest Award was given to the theatre for its world premiere of Alicia in Wonder Tierra, a great success for the theatre involving actors in the Latino community in that production and many others. In 1999, the Coterie world premiere commission of The Wrestling Season by Laurie Brooks went on to be produced around the country after it was presented at Kennedy Center for New Visions 2000: One Theatre World. The play was featured as the published play in American Theatre Magazine in November, 2000.
Several of the Coterie’s premieres were developed at the Kennedy Center’s New Vision/New Voices new play festival and at NYU’s Educational Theatre Program at Provincetown Playhouse. A listing of the theatre’s many commission and world premieres can be found in our Production History. Also see The Coterie’s Lab for New Family Musicals section below.
In the fall of 2002, The Coterie underwent a tremendous renovation of its uniquely intimate facility. This renovation added a kinetic new lobby, a theatre lab for onsite classes, and an improved stage. The Coterie believes innovative sets, staging, set design, lighting and costuming allow children to visualize life in unique and personal ways. Shortly after this, the Coterie purchased new seating with a distinctive color scheme. We’ve continued our practice of seating young children on the floor for our elementary and family productions, for an up close and personal theatre experience. For our preteen and young adult productions, every audience member has a traditional theatre seat.
Young Playwrights Roundtable
Selected students participate (free of charge) in the Young Playwrights Roundtable. Each spring, The Coterie professionally stages representative work from the Roundtable members in its annual Young Playwrights Festival. Each program is a powerful example of how The Coterie profoundly enriches children’s lives.
Project Daylight
Project Daylight, a collaboration between The Coterie Theatre and UMKC School of Social Work, is offered FREE of charge to 6th and 7th grades in the Kansas City area to support mental wellness in pre-teens/teens. Pairing a trained actor/facilitator with a graduate student in social work, the classroom-sized session addresses mental health issues through an innovative, interactive theatre workshop that introduces middle school students – an often-underserved group – to mental wellness concepts.
Master Classes & Theatre Instruction
The Coterie Theatre School is our arts education component offering quality training in a variety of theatre classes at multiple metro locations throughout the year and performance camps during the summer. The Coterie’s Master Classes in Acting and Comedy offer pre-collegiate professional training, attracting many of the most talented young adults in the city. Master Class enrollment is by invitation only.
Project Pride
Project Pride is a group of LGBTQ and straight allied teens creating theatre that gives voice to their experiences, culminating in a production that challenges the assumptions and celebrates the diversity of the participants and audience.
In this annual project, the troupe meets for four months to develop and create a unique theatre piece exploring and celebrating what it means to be an LGBTQ or straight allied teen in the Kansas City area.
Partnerships
The Coterie’s outreach can also be seen in the collaborative partnerships that reflect and serve the Kansas City community, both in Missouri and Kansas. The Coterie’s successful community partnerships include working with Big Brothers Big Sisters Kansas City and The Black Archives of Mid-America in Kansas City on the world premiere of Becoming Martin, Powell Gardens on Jack and the Bean Mágico!, Wayside Waifs on Garfield: The Musical with Cattitude, Midwest Center for Holocaust Education and Tradewind Arts on Hana’s Suitcase, Metropolitan Organzation to Combat Sexual Assault (MOCSA) on The Wrestling Season, and Midwest Bioethics Center on Frankenstein.
Other partnerships at The Coterie include a long-standing relationship with the professional training program at UMKC Theatre. Actors and designers work at The Coterie in their final years of training, marking their professional debut to the community. In addition, acting apprenticeships are offered to five to eight elementary, middle and high school-age students throughout the year, allowing them to act alongside professional actors.
Theatre for Young Audiences Programs
Since its founding in 1979, The Coterie has been dedicated to developing new generations of audiences for live theatre, the performing arts, and arts education.
