Planning for Tomorrow, Today!
In September, 2023 The Growing Stage – The Children’s Theatre of New Jersey (TGS) launched our 42nd Main Stage season with the theme, “Tell Me a Story” and oh, what a tale we have to share. The traditional cyclical nature of our genre of theatre experienced a two-year interruption due to the pandemic and we continue to rebuild and refresh not only our programming, but our methods of delivering our missions work to ensure that we are serving and welcoming all that enter our theatre. At the same time that our organization strives for continued growth, we are also focused on sustainability in the many facets that make up the Growing Stage.
MAIN STAGE
Our region continues to grow, and with that naturally comes change. While our main focus is presenting classic and new works aimed at young people, the families that come to The Growing Stage have differing needs, challenges, and expectations.
- The influx of a younger audience base (preschool through 2nd grade) energized our growth this season, especially during our record run of ELEPHANT & PIGGIE – WE ARE IN A PLAY! We added complimentary booster seats for better viewing, ensuring each child has a great perspective of the stage, enhancing the entire family’s theatre experience.
- We presented our first bi-lingual production, CARMELA FULL OF WISHES, and included bilingual flyers, playbills and activity guides, a practice we will continue moving forward.
- We expanded our performance services to families with autistic children or specific learning disabilities. We offer a sensory-friendly performance at each Main Stage offering and have extended our Quiet Room opportunity for every performance with show-specific activities. This allows an entire family an experience and ability to share in the theatrical performance we have created while accommodating their comfort.
Our numbers demonstrate the growth we have experienced this past season. The biggest impact was our production of ELEPHANT & PIGGIE with a total weekend audience of 1,333 over seven performances and an additional total weekday audience of 2,304 through our school Main Stage Matinee program. Our grand total audience was 3,637 with 19 performances and an average audience of 191 per performance. Our first four productions of the season averaged 120 per performance. Prior to that production, we saw modest growth with our average audience percentage rising from 50% to 65% from the previous season.
CREATIVE ARTS ACADEMY
Our Creative Arts Academy consistently outpaced our budget goals. This aspect of our programming oversees the New Play Reading and the Young Writer’s Festival, the all-youth Studio Series productions, all special programming events, as well as three semesters of Arts Education for students in preschool through high school and our five-week Summer Arts Day Camp. The classes and camp have exceeded our expectations, likely due to our parents’ greater appreciation of the tools arts education programming provides young people, especially those that were impacted by the pandemic. Confidence in sharing ideas, public speaking, teamwork, creative expression, and self-confidence are attributes woven into our programming.
We have also expanded our Creative Arts Academy to include:
- A SONG & A STORY program for 3 to 5 year olds. This program encourages participation in the arts through both song and creative dramatics.
- Our New Play Reading Festival shared four strong new works from around the country. This year’s Festival featured artists from California, Michigan and New York with the Laurie Award winning piece being HER BEAUTIFUL SOUND by Cris Eli Blak. It’s a beautiful story of a young girl that features the importance of communication by highlighting the power of expression through spoken word poetry. The piece will have its World-Premiere during our 2024-2025 Main Stage season.
- Our weekday Improvisation Class for Middle and High School aged students has gained popularity, strengthening their ability to unplug and interact with peers in an entertaining and interactive way.
- Individual Master Classes in Voice and Movement for those young people serious about pursuing their craft.
- Two new special programming events – Photos with Santa Day that included crafts and carolers and our New Year’s Eve-Eve Concert with Grammy-nominated recording artist, Brady Rymer that took place on the Saturday before the holiday at 11:00 AM with hats and horns blaring as well as streamers coming down from the ceiling on our young audience at noon!
GENERAL OPERATIONS
The operation of The Growing Stage is overseen by our full time staff of five, sharing multiple roles and collaborating with artists, volunteers and Board of Trustees, that are key to our success.
Highlights include:
- We surpassed our subscription goal from 2022-2023 attracting more families for the 2024-2025 season. This goes against the grain of nation-wide trends that theatres are experiencing, but we’re not complaining.
- We added Pre-Show Party experiences for ELLA ENCHANTED, CARMELA FULL OF WISHES, ARTHUR & FRIENDS and ELEPHANT & PIGGIE. Each sold out and further enhanced the theatre experience.
- With the addition of our concession area/store we continued to provide high quality, but affordable merchandise and concessions to also enhance the patron’s experience.
- Marketing dollars (print & digital advertisement) were focused on our educational programming, resulting in our Summer Arts Day Camp selling out by May and exceeding our Creative Arts Academy enrollment goals. Where we once had a patron base that secluded itself to either education programming or Main Stage performances, we now see growth in the whole experience TGS offers for both child and family.
- We developed new relationships with regional businesses through our Spotlight Your Business program, once again exceeding our goal from the previous year, and supporting the small business community with effective marketing opportunities.
- As a compliment to the effort we have placed on creating bi-lingual materials we also focused on website accessibility by adding a tool on our website to make it available in multiple languages.
- Funding is remains vital to fill the gaps created by both our costs impacted by inflation and our commitment to remaining economically accessible to all that walk through our doors. The Stone Meadow Fund helps us to provide complimentary tickets and enrollment to young people and organizations serving families in need. We also launched two special anniversaries to enhance our appeals to our patrons: Founder’s Day, which celebrates the 1st performance of The Growing Stage on October 22, 1982 and Palace Theatre Day on March 1, commemorating our 1st performance at the Palace Theatre in 1996.
- We have also made strides both regionally and nationally in sharing the work of our organization. We are currently working with 55 libraries in six counties across northern New Jersey – Essex, Morris, Passaic, Somerset, Sussex and Warren. With many of our productions based on published books, we are working with them to encourage reading by providing complimentary tickets to be used in their own promotional efforts. Danny Campos, TGS Director of Marketing was also featured at this year’s TYA/USA National Conference in Atlanta. Danny led a panel discussion on Branding/Marketing, sharing the TGS brand along with colleagues from across the country.
THE PALACE THEATRE
We embrace our role and responsibility as caretaker of our historical home, focusing on sustainability to ensure its role for future generations. We modernized our restrooms with water-saving features and completed our first season utilizing a full LED theatrical lighting system that enhances our design capabilities while reducing energy wattage from 1000 to 110 per lighting instrument.
This fall, with funding from the New Jersey Historic Trust and the Morris County Historic Preservation Trust Fund, we will refinish our stage flooring to expand its usage to other art disciplines. We have proposals in place to replace a faulty furnace and to unify our entire HVAC system into one cohesive system.
HIGHLIGHTS FOR #43 – THE 2024-2025 SEASON
The 2024/2025 Main Stage season will include well-known works like, CHARLIE & THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY and RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER featuring large casts for weekend performances only. Our next three productions, CATCHING THE MOON, HER BEAUTIFUL SOUND, and KNUFFLE BUNNY: A CAUTIONARY MUSICAL are more intimate, featuring a smaller full cast of professional adult artists and will feature both weekend and weekday school shows. Each is tailored for a specific age group so that they will not compete with each other and will allow for multiple grades to attend the theatre throughout February to May. Our final show of the season, KNUFFLE BUNNY, was created by Mo Willems, the well-known children’s book author and the playwright for our record-breaking production of ELEPHANT & PIGGIE.
At times a willingness to evolve for the sake of your mission needs to be made regardless of how hard it may be. In 2024 TGS officially left our relationship with Actors’ Equity. That does not mean that we are no longer a professional company of artists, we are and compensate our artists at a higher rate than previously. We chose to make this move because of the limitations placed on casting young performers to be included in our productions. TGS is unique in the opportunity we provide young people to work side by side with our professional artists. We believe there is greater value in maintaining this artistic and educational opportunity for them than staying on a path that would negatively impact the mission of our theatre.
We are extremely grateful for the outstanding leadership David O’Neill has provided our organization as President during the last five years. His commitment to TGS led us through some very challenging times. Belinda Perez will be taking the role this fall. We have also instituted a Strategic Planning Committee to set long-term goals and address leadership succession facing the company within the next three to five years.
From the start we have always utilized folding chairs for our performances. Whether they were the all-metal ones I would pick-up from the local school in Chester or the slightly cushioned ones we currently offer – they all shared functionality without comfort. We hope to change that and in doing so, raise the level of experience for our patrons while adding to the marketability of our facility. I have attached details on the seating initiative and request your consideration for support. To date we have raised $22,900 towards the $90,000 goal.
YOUR ACTIVE PARTICIPATION IN THE GROWING STAGE MATTERS
It continues to make a difference in the communities we serve as well as the young people and their families that our mission was established for. Like the bricks that grace our facade, each gift has been built on the foundation you have helped to establish. The young people that came through our doors yesterday now bring their own children to the theatre and some have actually grown to take leadership roles within our company. That is sustainability.
Your investment in The Growing Stage mission fuels young people with creativity, artistic self-expression, self-confidence and imagination. That has tremendous value and you help make it happen! Thank you for your support.
Best wishes,
Stephen L. Fredericks, Founder & Executive Director
sfredericks@growingstage.com / (973) 347-4946
Please contact me if you have any additional questions or require any additional information on items found in this report. We appreciate your feedback. Thank you!
