Miami International Children´s Theater Festival

Video by OmniOk Productions Conecta Miami Arts produced the first edition of Miami International Children’s Theatre Festival (MICTF), a theatre festival that presented some of the best local and international children’s theatre companies to be enjoyed for FREE by Miami-Dade County students from November 12-22, 2024. The purpose of this program is to develop the culture of going to the theatre at a young age by presenting plays in performing arts centers in diverse neighborhoods of Miami with the hopes of introducing children to various theatre forms and cultural traditions, in a fun and interactive way. Miami is home to renowned cultural festivals such as Miami Book Fair, Art Basel, Miami Film Festival, to name a few; it is time to provide our youth the same opportunity with MICTF! We are proud to have served 1,642 Miami-Dade County students from 19 different Miami-Dade County schools from neighborhoods ranging from Hialeah, Miami Shores, Liberty City, Doral, Norland, Aventura, Little Haiti, Coral Reef, Brickell, Coconut Grove, Wynwood, Miami Gardens and North Miami. We are happy to have been able to include a variety of schools from public, charter, Montessori to even a preschool! MICTF featured five theatre companies in two venues - Sandrell Rivers Theatre in Liberty City and Miami Theatre Center in Miami Shores. The five theatre companies were comprised of three international (Argentina, Mexico and Spain) and two local companies, and ranged in style from classic theatre to shadow puppets and even theatre done by actors who are deaf and/or hard of hearing. We purposefully decided to only do school shows in this first edition of the Festival with plans on doing shows for schools and also for the general public in future years! Conecta is proud to have presented a fully accessible Festival by presenting works in English, Spanish, bilingual and non-verbal, thus ensuring that language was not a barrier. We also made sure to cover the cost of transportation for every single school we invited to the MICTF to ensure that school children who don’t often have the ability to attend the theatre had access to quality theatrical productions. We received over 100 notes from teachers and students thanking us for MICTF, most being handwritten notes from the students themselves. It is evident that an annual children’s theatre festival is not only needed but very much wanted by students, teachers, parents, and our local artists and theatres based on the overwhelmingly positive response and inquires we have received as to when they can expect the next one! After each performance, we conducted Q&As between students, teachers and each theatre company and perhaps what was most interesting about the Q&As was to learn that (without an exception) after each performance, when asked if this was the first time they had been to the theatre before, shockingly, about half or more of the audience raised their hands demonstrating that they had not. We are therefore extremely proud to report that over 800 children were introduced to the theatre for the first time thanks to Miami International Children’s Theatre Festival. Below is a breakdown of the performances that took place during MICTF: The Tempest is a magical tale of justice and reconciliation, reimagined for children and young audiences in this delightful adaptation of Shakespeare's classic. Produced by Miami’s Hand2Hand Team, La Cabeza de Tomás (That head of Tomás) Based on the story of the same name written by Mireya Tabuas, illustrated by Yonel Hernández, and selected among the winners of the Cuatro Gatos Prize 2024. Produced by the Education Department of Miami New Drama El principe heredero (The Crown Prince) This production was created specifically for Miami International Children's Theatre Festival by Teatro Fugaz, an Argentinean theatre company whose members have been dedicated to family programming for over 20 years in both theatre and television. Música para los ojos (Music for the eyes) is a play produced and performed by members of the Mexican theatre company Seña y Verbo comprised of deaf and hearing-impaired actors and a conductor who perform four short stories inspired by musical pieces by some of the greatest composers of all time: Bach, Beethoven, Mendelsohn and Vivaldi. In the format of a small chamber orchestra, the actors engage in a dialogue with the music that, were non-verbal. El soldadito de plomo by Iru Teatro from Spain features shadow puppetry using the Japanese technique of Bunraku to bring Hans Cristian Andersen's famous story to life.