Purple Crayon Players
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About Purple Crayon Players
Purple Crayon Players is a nationally recognized, award-winning group comprised entirely of Northwestern students committed to producing professionally written plays for young audiences. Established in 2005, the group received the 2006 “Best New Student Group” award. In the summer of 2010, Purple Crayon Players won the Winnifred Ward Outstanding New Children's Theatre Company Award from AATE (American Alliance for Theatre and Education) at their national conference in San Fransisco.
Purple Crayon Players plays an active role on-campus, showcasing Northwestern undergraduates' creativity with special projects such as devised performances and storytelling events. Last year, Purple Crayon Players took on its first ever literary season, expanded opportunities for direct youth involvement with show-related creative drama workshops, and led a devised performance workshop with students from El Cuarto Ano school in Humboldt Park. Finally, we created opportunities for new work development with PLAYground, our second annual festival of student-directed staged readings of three professional TYA (theatre for young audiences) playwrights' works-in-progress. We continue the festival every year, looking for ways to expand and provide more professional interaction with Northwestern students.
Every year Purple Crayon Players produces a winter mainstage show that goes on tour in the spring. We bring the show and accompanying workshops to elementary, middle and high schools in the area, receiving valuable feedback and responses from students and teachers alike. Last year our touring show was The Phantom Tollbooth, an adaptation of the beloved children’s book by Susan Nanus. This year, we will be touring Doors, a celebrated work by famed TYA Suzan Zeder.
The main goal of Purple Crayon Players is to create thought-provoking, smart and entertaining theatre for young audiences as well as to help children better understand theatre and themselves through workshops, classes and games. We believe theatre for young audiences is theatre for all audiences, and invite you to join us for our upcoming season of classic plays and risk-taking new projects.
Mission Statement
Purple Crayon Players is a student-run theatre company on the Northwestern University campus committed to creating high quality productions, events, and educational materials regarding all aspects of theatre for young audiences. Purple Crayon Players believes that audience of all ages can appreciate, be inspired by, and grow through exposure to this unique art form.
We produce a mainstage season of professionally written works for young audiences, while also sponsoring high quality outreach events, educational events, and special projects for audiences of all ages both on campus and in the outlying community. These events support the mainstage season, as well as explore other aspects of theatre, community service, and learning.
Purple Crayon Players feels that making theatre more accessible, in large part through our touring show as well as through events during our season, is a necessary aspect of producing theatre for young audiences. We strive to include diverse opinions, cultures, events, and voices in our season in order to adequately reflect the diverse world that our audiences and artists come from.
Furthermore, we understand the importance of training the future leaders of the TYA field, and strive to provide Northwestern University students with opportunities to direct, produce, design, perform, teach, and explore new ways of expanding the field both on campus and at large.
2010-2011 Season
Fall
- Mainstage
- The Wrestling Season by Laurie Brooks
- November 18-20
- Produced by Tracey Haneman and Erica Israel
- Directed by Alex Tey
Winter
- Special Event
- Le Ballon Rouge (The Red Balloon)
- winter TBA
- a Visual Performance event for all ages
- a collaboration by Trina McGee & Jeff Glass
- Mainstage/Spring Tour
- Doors by Susan Zeder
- March 10-12
- Produced by Louis Schermerhorn
- Directed by Jeff Glass
Spring
- April 15-16
- Written by professional TYA playwrights
- Special Event
- Luna by Ramon Esquivel
- spring TBA
- an interactive theatrical event for very young audiences.
- Directed by Dana O'Brien
Call for Teaching Artists
Purple Crayon provides creative drama workshops and/or other educational programming in conjunction with each of our main stage productions, as well as a monthly storytime at Evanston Public Library and numerous other short-term education projects. Fall 2010 will see the launch of our first ever high school internship program.
If you're interested in becoming a teaching artist with Purple Crayon, or being involved with our education projects, contact us at purplecrayonplayers@gmail.com ATTN: Education.
Current Members
2010-2011 Executive Board
Congratulations to the 2010-2011 Executive Board!
- Artistic Director: Jacob Watson
- Production Manager: Jordan Puckett
- Development Director: Ellen Abram
- Outreach Coordinator: Mary Hungerford
- Business Manager: Scott Shimizu
- Marketing Director: Louis Schermerhorn
- Literary Manager: Abby Zan Schwarz
- Education Directors: Robyn Char, Alli Finn, Dana O'Brien
- Special Events Coordinators: Alyssa Vera Ramos, Alex Young
- Tour Managers: Amelia Hefferon, Jordan Johnson
- Technical Director: Melanie Gertzman
2010-2011 Producers
- Fall Shanley: Tracey Haneman & Erica Israel
- Winter Shanley/Spring Tour: Louis Schermerhorn
2010-2011 Directors
- Fall Shanley: Alex Tey
- Winter Shanley/Spring Tour: Jeff Glass
Contact Us
Wanna get involved? Have a couple questions? Want to bring our Spring Tour to your elementary or middle school? Please contact us at purplecrayonplayers@gmail.com any time! You can also call us at 847-859-9-TYA (847-859-9892) or reach us via snail mail at 1999 Campus Drive, Evanston, IL 60208.
