Making Books Sing Changes Its Name, But Not Its Tune

Yesterday, the non-profit theater group Making Books Sing–which performs for approximately 8,000 city kids and families each year–announced that it is changing its name to New York City Children’s Theater.

Musician Laurie Berkner performs a song from “The Amazing Adventures of Harvey and the Princess.” Photo by Antoine Debrill for New York City Children’s Theater

“We are here in New York working with all five boroughs. This is all being done by, with, and, for New York and our work speaks to adults as much as it does to children,” says Barbara Zinn Krieger, the theater’s founder and artistic director, of the renaming.

The theater, which frequently gives in-school theater performances for students in all five boroughs, gears many of its performances towards children with special needs and those coming from lower-income communities. The New York City Children’s Theater strives to engage both young audiences and adults in their performances. Many of their theater programs also tie into the New York State ELA curriculum, fostering language development and promoting self- confidence for young people. One of their many goals is to use interactive theater programs and performances to address current issues that are relatable to their audiences.

One of the group’s upcoming performances, “Two Bugs are Better Than One,” is a prime example of this goal. After conducting much research on the topic, they found that many pre-schoolers experience difficulties connecting with others in school settings. Thus, “Two Bugs are Better Than One” addresses these issues by showing the benefit of two strong individual bugs working together as a team.

The New York City Children’s Theater is working hard to bring theater to schools all over New York City, especially those lacking the arts in their curricula. For more information on their work and upcoming events, visit nychildrenstheater.org.

And don’t forget to check out one of their new shows, “The Amazing Adventures of Harvey and the Princess,” opening on November 15!

Yuletide Factory

Fill your hearts with circus cheer&mdash;the merry daredevils of Cirque Mechanics (Zephyr, 2023) are back with an industrial-strength spectacular for you and your kin. Sparkling with holiday spirit, the ever energetic ensemble of acrobats transforms a drab assembly plant into a holly jolly Yuletide Factory! From the wonder of the German wheel to festive flips from the trampoline wall, they dash and dance through a pageant of powerhouse stunts with grins and goodwill. It&rsquo;s high-flying fun, comfort and joy for the whole family!

The Language Workshop For Children

After offering both group and private lessons for many years and analyzing the results over&nbsp;time, The&nbsp;Language Workshop for&nbsp;Children, founded&nbsp;in1973, has decided&nbsp;to emphasize private remote lessons at shorter intervals.&nbsp;Our skilled educators&nbsp;will&nbsp;focus their attention exclusively on the&nbsp;unique needs, learning style, and interests of your child.&nbsp;This allows a&nbsp;bond&nbsp;to develop&nbsp;between teacher and student, which&nbsp;has been&nbsp;shown to&nbsp;drastically improve retention.&nbsp; OUR METHOD&nbsp; Developed by the pioneers of language education for children, our programs bring decades of&nbsp;experience to your living room with individualized, active language classes. Each lesson is based on proven methods and materials perfected to capture your&nbsp;child&rsquo;s attention during the ages when he/she absorbs information the fastest. &nbsp;&nbsp; While other online language classes rely on videos for passive learning, we deliver interactive, and engaging lessons with native-fluent teachers. In addition, all our teachers are certified in the Thibaut&nbsp;Technique which has been featured&nbsp;in the New York&nbsp;Times, the&nbsp;Wall Street Journal, and many other well-respected&nbsp;publications.&nbsp;&nbsp; Our short one-on-one lessons give kids the chance to focus, hear pronunciation clearly, and practice speaking in their target language.  THE PROCESS&nbsp; First, students have a short meeting with our Director&nbsp;Francois&nbsp;Thibaut, in&nbsp;English, with&nbsp;their parent(s)&nbsp;present.&nbsp;Mr. Thibaut&nbsp;will determine&nbsp;the best course of study, including&nbsp;class length and&nbsp;frequency, the&nbsp;right&nbsp;teacher, lesson&nbsp;format and materials (or action games for younger students.) Then the learning&nbsp;begins!&nbsp;Mr. Thibaut will continually check in on your child&rsquo;s learning to assure they are getting the most&nbsp;of&nbsp;their&nbsp;classes.&nbsp; OTHER OFFERINGS&nbsp; We can also help your child prepare for: the French subject tests for SAT, AP &amp; CLEP, the European DELF/DALF, the Canadian TEF and other standardized testing, college entry exams, studying or traveling abroad,&nbsp;cultural changes when moving abroad,&nbsp;and much more!&nbsp; &nbsp;