Florida Studio Theatre kicks off children’s theater season with ‘Robin Hood’

It’s billed as “children’s theater,” but really, Caroline Kaiser said, it’s theater for the whole family.

“You can bring a 3-year-old and you can bring a 12-year-old,” she said. “It’s best you bring them together, and the kids and the adults can all appreciate it on different levels.”

Kaiser is the director of children’s theater for Florida Studio Theater. She’s talking about the approach FST is taking with children’s theater in general, but more specifically she’s talking about “Robin Hood,” an adaptation of the classic story that starts the 2017-18 children’s theater season at FST.

FST has had a commitment to children’s theater for more than two decades, she said, but it was out of sight of most adult theater-goers. The company would produce plays for young audiences and take them around to schools in the area.

The company still does school tours, but starting last year it has produced children’s shows in its own space and stressed that they were plays for the family to enjoy together. School groups come in during the week, but on Saturdays the shows are open to the public.

The public performances of “Robin Hood” start this weekend.

If there are Robin Hood purists, Kaiser said, this adaptation should appeal to them.

“It has all the familiar characters, Robin Hood, Friar Tuck, the sheriff and, of course, Maid Marian,” she said. “But it adds contemporary elements, too.”

It’s in the Keating Theatre at FST, which seats about 170. The actors use the entire theater, not just the stage. In fact, one reason FST chose “Robin Hood” to open its children’s theater season is that it’s a bold piece that fills the theater and involves every person in the audience.

And there is plenty of action, Kaiser said, including sword fights. But since parents will be bringing kids to the performances, she stresses that it’s stage combat, not actual sword fighting.

“We choreograph every move, exactly the way we would choreograph a dance,” she said.

The other children’s theater shows at FST in the coming season are “Deck the Halls: ‘Tis the Season,” an interactive family holiday show by Alexander Hehr, in December; a stage adaptation of C.S. Lewis’ “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” in February, and “The Boy Who Liked Pulling Hair & Other Winning Plays,” an anthology of plays written by elementary school students (but performed by professional actors), beginning in April.

Details: 11 a.m. Saturdays in October, Keating Theatre at Florida Studio Theatre, 1241 N. Palm Ave., Sarasota. $10 ($20 for all four children’s shows); 941-366-9000, floridastudiotheatre.org.

This story was originally published October 4, 2017 at 5:18 PM with the headline "Florida Studio Theatre kicks off children’s theater season with ‘Robin Hood’."