VISIONARIES: Meg Quinn
Posted on Thursday, January 7th, 2010
by block club
Theatre of Youth, familiar to parents and educators as TOY, entertains school children from across the region with daytime and weekend performances of plays and musicals geared towards young minds. At home in the Allendale Theatre in the heart of Allentown, TOY combines thought-provoking content with imaginative theatrical staging. With every production, the goal is to enlighten, entertain, educate and inspire young audiences in ways they likely won’t find in any other setting.
After each performance, artistic director Meg Quinn leads a talkback session where students can ask any question they like. Quinn points to this process as being essential to the creative thinking process. It is inside a theater––both on a stage and in the seats––where she says young minds can flourish with creativity, confidence and imagination. And, she says, adults can learn a thing or two from what their children are gaining at TOY.
Theatre of Youth is a prime example of how stoking the fires of critical and imaginative thought is another, often untapped, method of planning for the future. As Quinn professes, who better to entertain with this philosophy than with Western New York’s youngest audiences?
-Ben Siegel
What are you teaching your audiences about themselves?
In the big picture, we create a theater experience that we hope enlivens a child’s own creative thinking, wonder and imagination. All of those things are just so important in their learning, their development, their application of knowledge. You have to keep those things open to possibilities. That’s what the future is all about, that’s what new jobs are about. And the arts help to stimulate that.
How does theater help to foster that kind of growth in kids?
We’re thinking about how we can challenge a child’s own imagination and creative thinking, and those skills in the larger sense are really important in this day and age, when you think about how the future develops its innovative thinkers. The arts need to be an integral part of education. Creative thinking skills are what we try to nurture through the arts.
Do you feel that kids get are getting in the classroom what you’re offering them in the theater?
One of the things that I like to say is that there’s so much emphasis on the nuts and bolts of education, on the math and science, and it’s all important. We have to all know that shared information. But then what do you do with what you know? The creative thinking skills are what I believe the arts provide.
There’s something so communal about theater. What can kids learn from being members of an audience?
Kids come from so many cross-sections, from the inner city, rural areas, suburbs, and they’re all in our building on the same day. It’s really a terrific example for them to know that they’re learning the same thing. They laugh at the same things, they ask the same questions. It’s wonderful that they have so much in common, no matter where they go to school, that they’re all curious and wondering the same thing. Kids have a shared experience. That’s just good community building.
What kinds of reactions do you get in the post-show talkbacks?
They are very curious, so we have to give them the opportunity to ask. Many times the kids will ask the questions, and I can see in the adults’ faces, too, ‘How did you get that [set piece] to fly?’ You see all these faces go, ‘Ooh, that’s how you do it!’ When you have a good story you can engage everybody. You allow your own imagination to take flight. I always start back with the question, ‘What are you wondering about?’ That’s on purpose. They just seem to realize that, ‘My thinking meant something. It wasn’t foolish, it wasn’t silly.’
You not only perform for children, you often feature children performers in your shows. This is a tradition that goes back to vaudeville, though on your stage they’re really taking the narrative lead with fully written characters. As a theater producer who employs children actors, how do you alter your creative and business relationships for your young stars?
I think TOY should be a place where children will be nurtured. We make it very clear to parents when their child works with us that your child will be taken care of. This is a nurturing environment. But they rehearse. They have to learn lines. It’s a real commitment from the child and family, but there have been numerous kids over the years who have had to make a real sincere commitment.
What is there to gain from being a performer in a cast?
It’s about confidence, about feeling good about themselves, about being capable of taking on challenges. We always tell them, ‘We’ve asked a lot of you, and you did it! And you’re 10 years old. Just imagine what your potential is.’
I’m very happy to say that everybody who works at TOY is of that mindset. We have a really great team of artists who are very committed to a children’s audience. I sincerely believe that when you work with children, you have a great responsibility to do your best. When they come to the theater for the first time, I want them to see something that’s really solid so there’s a benchmark there; that this is what theater can be.
You are a strong proponent of the cultural and educational value of theater, but do you think about where else theater can take us as a community? Is it possible for the performing arts to play a bigger role in the lives of our adult population beyond being a source of entertainment?
The role of arts in our community is important where it fits into the role of government. Arts and culture need to be integrated into the strategic thinking. It’s not just about Shea’s selling a lot of tickets so that people need a place to eat downtown. It’s got to be part of the thinking and planning.
I think in smart cities all over the world, people who are forward thinking are looking at leadership and saying, this has go to be part of our planning. Thinking in innovative ways about what your city is going to be about. It can’t be this add-on thing; it has to be part of it.
It seems children aren’t the only ones who could learn a lesson or two here. How can an artist’s perspective be beneficial to local government?
Imagination. The ability to really imagine possibilities and not just be about a bottom line, tighten-your-belt attitude. We have great resources. I want to see artists at the table when it comes to problem solving. Why would you not involve the creative mass? Arts organizations are often brought in after the fact. We need to be a collective voice right at the beginning. We need to not wait for them to come around to us.
