Wolf Trap.Children's Theatre in the Woods

We have a diamond in our midst. It’s called Wolf Trap Farm Park for the National Arts. If you live close to Washington D.C you will have probably visited it, but if you live anywhere else in the USA you most probably will have heard of it but not had the pleasure of visiting The National Park. “Wolf Trap” as it’s known to locals is a performing arts complex set on 117 acres in Vienna VA. It offers both natural and cultural resources to its visitors including 3 internationally renowned performing arts centers. (They also used to host an annual International Children’s Festival)

The original owner Catherine Filene Shouse donated her farm to the federal government and in 1966 Congress officially accepted her gift. The Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts is a nonprofit organization founded by Catherine Filene Shouse concurrent with the donation of her Wolf Trap Farm to the National Park Service. The Park is operated as a public/private partnership between the Park Service and the Foundation. Mrs. Shouse also offered over $2 million to construct the Filene Center for performances. (which sadly was damaged by fire and had to be rebuilt.) The second Filene Center, built of Douglas Fir and Southern Yellow Pine, is a beautiful outdoor amphitheater designed to be in harmony with its national park setting. It was rebuilt between 1982 and 1984. Today, the seating capacity is 7,000, including about 3,800 in-house seats and 3,200 lawn seats. In addition to The Filene Center there is also an indoor arts center called The Barns at Wolf Trap which seats an intimate 382.

In my opinion “The Jewell in the Crown” of Wolf Trap Farm Park is The Children’s Theatre in the Woods an outdoor amphitheater that seats approximately 1600 kids that has a vibrant Kids series every summer and models itself on the original philosophy of Catherine Shouse, which was an inherent belief to help very young children learn critical skills, creativity, math, language arts, imagination through the performing arts. This theater ticks every box on her wish list.

Institute for Early Learning Through the Arts

Much of Wolf Trap’s original mandate when Mrs Shouse first donated the farm to The National Parks Service was education. Wolf Trap Foundation’s largest education investment is in children from infancy to kindergarten age, along with their teachers. The Wolf Trap Foundation believes in the value of the performing arts to improve early childhood education, and they offer classroom residencies and professional development workshops, with effective arts-integrated teaching strategies for helping children succeed in school. Please visit Institute for Early Learning Through the Arts for more details.

Performances at the Theatre in the Woods

Saddle up kids, because our friends Joe and Justin, The Okee Dokee Brothers are coming to town, and will be performing at the Children’s Theatre in the Woods this Friday and Saturday July 28th and 29th at 10:30 am. Tickets are $10.00. Joe and Justin record and perform family music with a goal to inspire children and their parents to get outside and get creative.They believe this can motivate kids to gain a greater respect for the natural world, their communities and themselves. The GRAMMY® Award-winning Okee Dokee Brothers, have put their passion for the outdoors at the heart of their Americana Folk music. What better way to see The Okee Dokee Brothers, than outdoors in the beautiful Theatre in the Woods. Click here to reserve your TICKETS .

Children’s Theatre in the Woods for 2017 will run through August 5th. To check out other amazing acts for Children at Wolf Trap please visit CHILDREN’S THEATER IN THE WOODS For Info and tickets CLICK here

We need more opportunities for bravery for our young artists to bring out their raw essence and to hone their talents. Non performers may not realize that it takes a lot more metal to perform in small intimate settings that are open to the public, than it does in large stage settings with presold tickets. Supporting local artists isn't always about writing a big check. Young artists desperately need opportunities to perform in order to get feedback and learn their craft. We were recently out at our favorite pizza place and we met a young parent who was struggling with how to entertain her kids this summer. We suggested the free weekly Library shows, something we assumed everyone knew about. They were thrilled with the idea and admitted " We'd never even thought of that". Word of mouth sharing definitely helps the turn out at community events. Also, if you do show up to a Festival style performance and you see a family walking by trying to decide whether to sit down and watch, “anoint yourself” the welcome committee. Smile at them, scoot over and make plenty of room for them. The performer will be so grateful. Live performance can be awkward at "take-off" , and a few good audience members can make all the difference so that "magic" can happen. Let’s all stay connected, and share information with friends and neighbors about local performances.

The Children’s Theatre in the Woods has entertained hundreds of thousands of kids over the decades it’s been in existence. Wolf Traps motto for families that visit the Children’s Theatre in the Woods is STAY AND PLAY and they sincerely mean it. They absolutely want families to enjoy a picnic by the brook, visit with your friends and enjoy the show at the amphitheater. As proud alumni we can speak for all entertainers that the staff of Wolf Trap have always treated us with enormous respect and gone out of their way to help us with set ups and sound checks. Wolf Trap is truly a diamond in our midst.

We were honored to perform for 4 seasons at The Children’s Theatre in the Woods in the 1990’s. By the time we performed at Wolf Trap, we were well known in the Northern Virginia/Maryland suburbs of Washington D.C as we had “blanketed” hundreds of preschools in the area for about 5 years. The Kids would show up with their parents at gigs we were at such as The White House, The Ritz Carlton or The Kennedy Center, so we got to know a lot of our little buddies in that area during that time. And they all followed us to Wolf Trap !

In our final year performing for Wolf Trap, Mary Brown, the Director of Education at Wolf Trap, invited us to perform for 5 days in May at The Filene Center in front of approximately 7,000 children each day. We performed to approximately 35,000 kids on the beautiful main stage of The Filene Center that week. One of the many highlights of our career.

Our writing style has been heavily influenced by comedians like Robin Williams, Rowan Atkinson (Mr.Bean) and Monty Python’s Flying Circus, and we were writing material (songs and shows) for kids with a distinct “pediatric comedy flair.” Our tongue in cheek(y) shows were precisely what the serious minded kids of government workers needed, and so it made sense that we might incorporate comedy, vaudeville, and silly music into our shows. So we geared our shows toward the silly end of the spectrum, and the kids adored it, as they’d rarely witnessed adults behaving so badly. We were always politically incorrect. We walked into doors, fell down on the floors, performed little magic tricks, and became rock stars to thousands of suburban kids, who told their parents about us, who checked us out, and before we knew it we’d gained a huge following. We figured there’d be lots of time for the kids to learn about Nietzsche and Socrates as they go through school. Our job at that moment was to make them laugh. And laugh they did.

For those Children’s Artists who are unable to travel to perform at Wolf Trap, there are hundreds of events for kids around the country throughout the year. I’ve linked a list of Performing Arts Centers by State that can be useful to those who like to stay closer to home. Good luck Check out the list performing arts centers by State.