There’s nothing simplistic nor babyish about creating theater for young audiences, even very young audiences. Just ask Rockville teaching artist, director, movement deviser and performer Natasha Mirny.
She creates live theater experiences for children as young as months old by drawing on her training in mime, puppetry, ballet and jazz, clowning, and devised theater.
“The central part of the mission of my own theater company,” Mirny said, “is education.” But that doesn’t mean her audiences, whether kids or adults, can’t have fully artistic experiences while also having fun.
She brings innate curiosity — and flexibility — to the small but mighty company she founded in 2017. “I decided I wanted my theater to be happy,” she said, “so I called it Happy Theater. A French friend told me that in France, they would definitely make fun [of the name].” Mirny shrugged. “For me making theater is a really happy endeavor,” she added. “We make shows for all ages … but I love the little ones.”
In fact, one of her most successful productions – “To the Clouds” – is for very young children, ages one to six. It received a Helen Hayes nomination (like a Tony Award for metropolitan area theater companies) in 2019 when it premiered with the troupe Arts on the Horizon. It remains in Happy Theater’s repertory as one of the small troupe’s most-requested works.
Showtime at the Day Care
When Mirny pulled into a parking space at a day care center in the northern part of the county earlier this summer, she noted that every single show is different because she never knows what to expect until she walks in and sees the space.
Sometimes there may only be a corner of a classroom for her, at other locations it could be a cafeteria with a stage, a common room, library or multipurpose room.
No matter, Mirny and her musical partner, Moscow-trained guitarist Anna Kusner, have about 45 minutes to sign in, unload, and move around chairs and rugs to set the space with props, scenery and instruments before 30 wiggly kids and their teachers arrive.
“I think very young children deserve a high-quality theater experience with professionally designed sets and costumes just like everyone else,” Mirny said.
The two are meticulous, placing an accordion-folded screen, music stand and other items that are pulled out of a rolling trunk just so, even shifting a piece here or there by a few inches. Nothing is happenstance. “To the Clouds” is scheduled.
The children, ages 3 and 4, arrive at exactly 10 a.m. and sit together on a green rug, while teachers in chairs observe from the perimeter.
Mirny and Kusner, clad in blue jumpers and rubber rain boots, look like a cross between backyard gardeners and commedia dell’arte players.
Mirny stage whispers to the kids about how their teachers should behave; allowing the youngsters to become coconspirators in being attentive, rather than just audience members — a role unfamiliar to them.
For the nearly 30 minutes, the wordless production follows the water cycle through a single drop from a cloud to a spreading vine, sun, flowers and an ocean.
When a few littles get antsy, Mirny, barely three feet from them, draws everyone back with softspoken encouragement.
With no characters or a story arc, “To the Clouds” is part pantomime, part object theater, part musical as Mirny uses hats, boots, umbrellas and other sundry props to illustrate the theme as Kusner plays baroque compositions, which Mirny called soothing for children.
One crier hangs on to her teacher, but the rest of the children sit rapt following a giant water droplet fall from a cutout cloud, to a rainstorm of drops trickling from an opening umbrella and a swath of blue sequined cloth that creates a pool for a goldfish to swim in.
As quickly as it began, the show’s over, just in time. As the kids are ready to move on, Mirny, in a sweet singsong, chants, “All eyes on your teachers; they’ll tell you what to do.” Mirny and Kusner pack the silver trunk up in 20 minutes.
Theater for Infants and Toddlers
Happy Theater performs and teaches throughout Montgomery County and
the region, as well as touring along the East Coast with their compact productions. Tia Shearer Bassett, Mirny’s creative collaborator, calls herself a multihyphenate performer drawing on experiences from Shakespeare and children’s theater to acting, writing and improvising.
The pair met at an actors’ “playshop” and hit it off. Inspiration comes from a variety of sources and physical materials; in the past that has included umbrellas, a traffic cone and Sophocles. Both love the challenge of crafting pieces for very young audiences.
Bassett, who lives in Takoma Park, first came upon theater for children from ages 0 to 3 through projects with the Kennedy Center. Now, when not doing her own work or working with Mirny, she lectures and teaches on theater for the very young.
“There isn’t necessarily a definition so much as principles that this work tends to ascribe to,” Bassett explained. “A huge one is that it is in some way interactive or participatory. It is often multisensory. But participation won’t necessarily look like it would for adults or older kids, where you speak and they say something back, or respond physically.”
Instead, a performer might bring something into the audience from the story on stage that the children can touch or interact with.
“This work tends to be either nonverbal or lightly verbal,” Bassett continued. “It also tends to involve music or sound. Finally, the idea of story is different and more specific, especially when you’re working with babies and toddlers. You don’t need a story so much as something that is episodic.”
An example from Bassett’s early work for the very young used the premise that a girl found a box and explored its many uses.
Mirny, who grew up in Moscow and holds degrees in journalism and philology, has honed Happy Theater into a nimble organization that can work readily across venues and ages from traditional theaters and park, school and library settings to street festivals and private events.
At press time Mirny’s at work on a five-minute immersive piece meant for just one person at a time to experience. It will premiere at the Renaissance Festival in Crownsville, Maryland, in August.
Mirny, who also teaches children and adults theater and clowning techniques at studios and private classes in the area, can’t wait to get back into creative mode with Bassett and Kusner because, she shared, she has new ideas percolating.
As part of the statewide Arts for Learning Maryland roster, Happy Theater is booking its school-year schedule now in Montgomery County and throughout the state.
Valerie Branch, director of teaching artists and early childhood education for the organization, enjoys cheerleading and supporting the work teaching artists like Mirny do with the youngest audiences.
“We are continually thrilled to have Natasha and Happy Theater on our roster,” Branch said. “Parents and caregivers rave whenever they have her in their spaces, because she is just so kind and gentle, and thoughtful and responsive in her content.
The way she builds relationships with her audiences, whether it’s through a one-off workshop or something created over time — I think about the way she uses theater and movement to get children to be expressive — it’s just a dynamic, joyful experience.”
For information on Happy Theater, visit happytheater.com.
Lisa Traiger is an award-winning arts journalist who writes on theater, dance, music, film and visual arts from her home in Montgomery County.
