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**Irving Patrick Freleigh** · 05-25-2010, 08:01 PM

Quoth thread title

The ballet is not a social convention!

Damn right! It's a bear driving around in a little car!

**Mr Hero** · 05-25-2010, 08:08 PM

Quoth Irving Patrick Freleigh View Post

Damn right! It's a bear driving around in a little car!

Too much prancing, not nearly enough dancing!

Irv, how did I know you would show up with the comment about the bear? Somewhat unrelated, but I finally figured out what your username refers to. I. P. Freely (or Freleigh I guess)

**Irving Patrick Freleigh** · 05-25-2010, 08:10 PM

A little mincing would be nice...

**Sheldonrs** · 05-25-2010, 08:13 PM

Quoth Mr Hero View Post

Too much prancing, not nearly enough dancing!

Irv, how did I know you would show up with the comment about the bear? Somewhat unrelated, but I finally figured out what your username refers to. I. P. Freely (or Freleigh I guess)

His name used to be Aisha T. Sporadically.

**Mystic** · 05-26-2010, 07:37 AM

Parents bring kids to things like this because they want to "culture" them. The fact they miss is that 90% of these kids are too far into video games and television to give a crap about culture till they grow up themselves and decide which part of the spectrum they are on themselves.

The older folks are there because they either had nothing better to do or were herded there like cattle by their retirement center activities director.

Either way, both greatly enhance my hatred for theater.

**~~PepperElf~~** · 05-26-2010, 04:22 PM

or sometimes the kids are geeks and actually like the show

seriously. my parents took sis and i to see Evita... I don't even know if I was 9 yet. But we'd grown up listening to mom's LP of it so it was a major treat. oh but that wasn't a matinee... it was evening (or late for me at least)

the only thing possibly worse might be when the high schools buy field-day tickets to a matinee. Sis went on one in her junior or senior year... oddly enough to Evita again

. She said the actors were glaring daggers at the misbehaving students.

Except her. They just gave her odd looks because she was mouthing along to the songs.

**Food Lady** · 05-26-2010, 05:44 PM

I never got to go to events like that as a kid. I would've loved it. I'd love it now, but never seem to have time nor money. But if you don't love it, why go? Why drag your bored offspring?

**firecat88** · 05-26-2010, 06:09 PM

Oh gosh. That reminds me of several incidents, but I'll only go into the specifics about one of 'em.

I went to see Riverdance in Denver with my parents and some family friends. Now, bear in mind that the showing of it that we went to was the evening show. The one that lets out at about 10-ish or so.

Beautiful show, I love the costumes and the music and the dancing and...well....*everything* about it. But there were two dance numbers, Thunderstorm and Shivna, that probably would've made me cry if I was a small child too. Both of them were of a very serious and dark nature, music and story-wise. Well, Thunderstorm ends and the music for Shivna starts. All of the sudden I hear crying that, at first, I thought was part of the show. Nope, it was someone's baby that they had to carry out of the theatre.

Beats the hell outta me why people will bring a baby to something like that. Same with evening showings of Cats, Phantom of the Opera, and Wicked. Unless the kid's a die-hard theatre nerd and old enough to actually have some understanding of the story...why?

**XCashier** · 05-31-2010, 05:14 AM

Quoth Food Lady View Post

I never got to go to events like that as a kid. I would've loved it.

It depends on the kid's personality, and the show playing.

My grandma used to take me to the theater every so often. It was Little Theater, and usually a musical (Annie Get Your Gun, The Music Man), and I loved it. It was a real treat for me. But not all kids would appreciate it, and certain shows are too long / too dry / too wordy / etc. for kids to enjoy.

**Seshat** · 06-03-2010, 05:51 AM

There were a couple of theatres in my home city which specifically would do child- and teenager-targetted shows, over the course of the year.

My parents would take us to see those shows, and teach us appropriate theatre behaviour at those. Once we were accultured to that, we were allowed to see live adult theatre on the (extremely) rare occasions they could afford tickets.

It was a good way to teach us, I think. A low risk of us disturbing the audience, because the audience consisted of other kids/teenagers. (And a few adults who like children's theatre, but should reasonably have known in advance what the audience would be like.)

And yes, while the young-children's shows were a bit panto-like, to keep them interested, the maturity of the shows increased as the target audience did. And so did the expected behaviour! These actors were basically teaching. It was great.

**BeeMused** · 06-06-2010, 11:40 AM

Quoth Seshat View Post

There were a couple of theatres in my home city which specifically would do child- and teenager-targetted shows, over the course of the year.

Yeah, we have those too. It's fun to got there with kids, I did with my grandnieces and -nephews, when they were at the right age. The best thing ever was a children's concerto, they did "Peter and the Wulf", with lots of explaining about the different instruments etc. And later when we listened to a recording they'd recognize the "voices" of the animals too.
I'd say you can't start early enough to expose children to "culture", I remember fondly, when we listened to The Moldau and to The Magic Flute in third grade at school. As a special treat my mom then took me to see The Magic Flute, ooooh getting dressed up and being really adult, I loved that! (OK that was before the hormones kicked in

)
But what the parents did in the OP? Comment

What a great way to make a kid hate theatre!

**SuperRTL** · 06-07-2010, 12:33 AM

My dad used to get tickets for us him and I to go see the final dress rehearsal of the Nutcracker. Very laid back for the audience and kind of awesome for a kid to see everybody start and stop and to get to meet all the people in the orchestra.

I took the kiddo to see Celtic Thunder for his birthday last year. He was transfixed for almost 2 hours then fell asleep in my lap. He'd just turned 6. I could actually see him loving Riverdance and Lord of the Dance, too.

Hubs took me to see Richard III for our anniversary last year. Definitely not a good show to take the kiddo to. Strangely, I saw several kids who were around 10 in the audience and they all were taken out of the theater in tears.

If you're going to take the kiddo's to the theater, start off at the local children's theater. Don't torture your fellow theater goers with them.

**BeeMused** · 06-07-2010, 10:58 PM

2 hours transfixion is really great for a 6 year old. Looks like your family is very much into dance.

Sheesh, none of the king history dramas of Shakespeare are for children, and some productions can be extra gruesome... For those parents: A brain, a brain, my kingdom for brain...

**Magpie** · 06-08-2010, 03:02 PM

There's a lot of people in Canada at least who think "Shakespeare = high culture" and therefore it must be clean. Apparently you get classes of students coming to the Stratford (Ontario) Festival, and the teachers trying to keep them from laughing at the dirty jokes, because those kids are being so immature and seeing filth in places where it doesn't exist. (And the Festival definitely includes the dirty jokes).