Highlights
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UCF’s multi-faceted partnership with the Orlando Family Stage has led to decades of impact in the local and broader theater communities.
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UCF’s MFA in theatre for young audiences program has operated for two decades as Florida’s only professional theater for young audiences and is one of the most distinctive programs in the country with its unique graduate-training residency.
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New research from the UCF psychology department provides evidence that programming at the Orlando Family Stage instills bravery in children as young as 1 year old.
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You can catch live performances from the Theatre for Young Audiences program during April’s UCF Celebrates the Arts festival at the Dr. Phillips Center in downtown Orlando.
Not long ago, Ben Lowe ’22 was working as a lighting designer for Universal Creative, helping craft what would become the next big thing for the Wizarding World of Harry Potter: the Ministry of Magic at Universal Epic Universe.
The realization hit him one day on the job. This project’s legacy and impact were going to outlive him.
“When I think back on every cool thing I’ve gotten to do so far in my career, it does all kind of lead back to Orlando Family Stage,” Lowe says.
Lowe was 6 years old when his cub scout troop attended a show at the stage, which recently celebrated its 100th anniversary — the last 25 of those years in partnership with UCF.
He eventually went through its Youth Academy, interned as a UCF theatre student on site, made industry connections and now regularly contracts work at the stage as a full-time lighting designer for Clair Global, a tech company that specializes in live production services.
Lowe’s story is just one example of the countless ripple effects that have materialized from UCF’s longstanding, collaborative partnership with a nationally recognized leader in the theater industry.
“I’ve watched kids come in and they’re so shy and they can’t do anything. But by the time they leave, they’re not only signing up for the next show, they’re leading the next show,” says Paul Lartonoix, assistant dean for the College of Arts and Humanities and longtime Orlando Family Stage board member. “Sometimes it’s amazing at what it does. There’s no reason to not be proud of it. It’s doing great things for families. It’s doing great things for kids. It’s doing great things for our students, and it’s awesome that it’s being run by Knights.”
A Partnership That Builds Community
Orlando Family Stage, founded in 1926 as part of the City of Orlando’s Recreation Department, has evolved over the past 100 years while persevering through historic challenges including the Great Depression, World War II, the Great Recession and the COVID-19 pandemic.
UCF entered the picture in 2000 when former Orlando Mayor Glenda Hood and UCF President John C. Hitt formed a community coalition to bring the stage under UCF’s oversight. At the time, the theater needed a major overhaul — both to its physical home at Loch Haven Park and in programming — to ensure it could thrive in the new millennium.
“I know with great confidence we would not be sitting here today without UCF on board. We wouldn’t have survived.” — Chris Brown ’05, Orlando Family Stage executive director and UCF theatre alum
“We wanted it because we thought that space was an exceptional, it had tremendous potential, and UCF should be a part of it. That really was the driving force,” says Lartonoix, who served as executive director on-loan and was instrumental in leading the early years of the partnership. “And when things worked, it was fantastic.”
The intervention proved to be a major catalyst for its impact in the community today, and for the world at large through the countless children and UCF graduates who have been affiliated with its programming and education.
“I know with great confidence we would not be sitting here today without UCF on board. We wouldn’t have survived,” says Chris Brown ’05, Orlando Family Stage executive director and UCF theatre alum. “To think that leaders came together and said, ‘We don’t want to lose a vital theater organization in our town, and we want to create an active and engaged partnership with the university where we can collectively do good things to serve young people in the world.’ It’s very special.”
Florida’s Only Professional Theatre for Young Audiences
A major part of that partnership is UCF’s MFA in theatre for young audiences program, which launched in 2004. The program has operated for the past two decades as Florida’s only professional theatre for young audiences and is one of the most distinctive programs in the country with its unique graduate-training residency.
In addition to learning from the university’s esteemed faculty, students gain practical experience with opportunities to work with professional artists and teach in Orlando Family Stage’s award-winning Youth Academy, which offers camps, classes and experiences for every age level from infancy through teens.
The MFA program has seen graduates go on to work at some of the most prestigious theaters in the country, become educators at universities as far as Dublin and help run community theaters across the United States.
In addition to his leadership role, Brown teaches theatre management courses on UCF’s campus. He says he believes an important part of his responsibility as an educator is to expand his students’ idea of where a career in the arts can take them.
“We’re helping them recognize that arts administration is creative work,” he says. “Writing a grant narrative, crafting a brand voice, planning a touring route or stewarding a donor relationship all require the same storytelling skills they bring to performance and production roles.”
Instilling Bravery in Children
The stage’s mission is to empower young people to be brave and empathetic.
Sure it sounds good, but more importantly, there’s truth to the claim. Recent research by the UCF Department of Psychology provides evidence to support it.
The Orlando Family Stage’s education team collaborated with associate professor Valerie Sims and senior lecturer Matthew Chin and more than a dozen undergraduate students from the Applied Cognition and Technology Lab along with associate professor of musical theatre Tara Deady ’07MFA on a study, which they are currently working on publishing. The study aimed to determine if the stage’s programming delivers on its promise to promote creative engagement and bravery in children ages 1-5.
Because of the young age of the participants, traditional survey tools and written questionnaires wouldn’t work. The team needed to get creative in a research approach that matched how children experience theatre.
The research team meticulously observed second by second footage of children and parent engagement during performances of Yo, Ho, Ho! Let’s Go! — an interactive, multi-sensory original production created by the stage’s senior director of education Jennifer Adams-Carrasquillo ’11MFA.
“We have evidence that theater participation really is beneficial to these very young kids.” — Matthew Chin, UCF psychology senior lecturer
They logged and quantified data through body language and audience responses. Early on, Sims and Chin say, children needed to be prompted by their parents to participate. However, as the show progressed, you can clearly see children initiating the participation on their own and parental involvement decreasing.
“With this study we are able to say that it isn’t just this thing that we think is true — we have evidence that theater participation really is beneficial to these very young kids,” Chin says.
In 2024-25 alone, more than 4,770 audience members attended Theatre for the Very Young productions like Yo, Ho, Ho! Let’s Go!. Multiply those numbers year after year and the impact to the youth in our community is monumental.
The Next 100 Years
As the stage commemorates this special milestone in its history, it also acknowledges the scope of possibilities and impact ahead.
This year, when Gershwin Entertainment Group, who owns the theatrical rights for A Charlie Brown Christmas, needed a national touring partner to bring the show to life on stage around the country, they turned to the Orlando Family Stage to deliver. It became the highest revenue-generating show in the history of the organizatoin’s performances in Orlando —without counting the 32 cities it visited from New York City to Vancouver, Canada.
A partnership with the UCF Department of History is enabling the stage to create an archive of its materials from the last century as part of the RICHES Mosaic Interface, an online resource dedicated to collecting and sharing the stories of Central Florida.
Another is the inaugural Florida Children’s Book Festival in partnership with Writer’s Block Book Store and WUCF, which they hosted in February and plan to host annually to celebrate literature and the link between books, storytelling and live theater.
“We all need to be aware of how special this place is. And we need to be so proud that our community has something like this.” — Chris Brown ’05, Orlando Family Stage executive director and UCF theatre alum
They look to expand the reach of Mind Matters, a program the stage initiated with UCF’s psychology department and national playwrights to produce 10 original short plays about geared for teens about depression, anxiety, loneliness, isolation and other mental health challenges they face today. The plays serve as an educational resource for teachers to spark honest conversations on these topics with their students.
Brown envisions one day expanding the footprint of the building with more theater space, new classrooms and offices to help alleviate their bursting-at-the-seems infrastructure, so they can keep delivering on all the dreams they want to turn into reality and continue creating meaningful experiences for children and the audiences of tomorrow.
“I can’t get past the energy and the faces of busloads of kids coming in here every day,” Brown says. “We all need to be aware of how special this place is. And we need to be so proud that our community has something like this.”
Celebrates the Arts Programming
You can catch live performances from the Theatre for Young Audiences program during April’s UCF Celebrates the Arts festival at the Dr. Phillips Center in downtown Orlando.
Orlando Family Stage Presents Centennial Celebration Concert
Thursday, April 2 – 7:30 p.m.
Hosted by Ashley Eckstein (Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Her Universe, HypeFriend!), this concert features performances that span musical styles and theatrical traditions, reflecting the many creative paths that begin at Orlando Family Stage.
*Featuring Micheal James Scott (Disney’s Aladdin on Broadway), Leslie Carrera-Rudolph (Emmy Award-winning performer for Abby Cadabby, Sesame Street), Jack Griffo (Nickelodeon’s The Thundermans), Davis Gaines (Broadway’s longest running Phantom of the Opera), Michael Andrew (Composer and one of America’s greatest interpreters of the American Songbook), Paul Vogt (Broadway’s Hairspray and Chicago). Video appearances by Mandy Moore (This Is Us), Jasmine Forsberg (Broadway’s Six and Here Lies Love), Clayton and Bella Grimm (Blippi), Broadway legend Norm Lewis and more.
*Artist lineup is updating and is subject to change.
Pen Pals – Theatre for the Very Young
Tuesday, April 7 – 10 a.m.
When best friends Squiggle and Square move away from each other, they must find creative ways to keep communicating! Told through clowning, puppetry and music, Pen Pals is a 30-minute interactive play designed for 5 to 10-year-olds.
Orlando Family Stage Presents Yo, Ho, Ho! Let’s Go
Saturday, April 11 – 10 a.m.
Yo, Ho, Ho! Let’s Go! is a 30-minute adventure designed especially for children ages 1 to 5 as a multi-sensory experience that invites them to help a pirate navigate the high seas. Together, they follow a treasure map, solve clues and chart the course forward.
