Adults speak children’s exact words about love, life, and the world in this fresh verbatim work. Drawn from interviews with over 40 whip-smart and brutally honest children, a dynamite adult cast allows an adult audience to hear kids’ ideas and experiences anew. The results are surprising, hilarious, and moving. The latest addition to the CHILD-ish universe is the CHILD-ish web series, which launches on June 22nd with a free virtual event. Book your FREE tickets now!
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Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse varius enim in eros elementum tristique. Duis cursus, mi quis viverra ornare, eros dolor interdum nulla, ut commodo diam libero vitae erat. Aenean faucibus nibh et justo cursus id rutrum lorem imperdiet. Nunc ut sem vitae risus tristique posuere.
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Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse varius enim in eros elementum tristique. Duis cursus, mi quis viverra ornare, eros dolor interdum nulla, ut commodo diam libero vitae erat. Aenean faucibus nibh et justo cursus id rutrum lorem imperdiet. Nunc ut sem vitae risus tristique posuere.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse varius enim in eros elementum tristique. Duis cursus, mi quis viverra ornare, eros dolor interdum nulla, ut commodo diam libero vitae erat. Aenean faucibus nibh et justo cursus id rutrum lorem imperdiet. Nunc ut sem vitae risus tristique posuere.
Sunny Drake
Jessica Greenberg
Julien Desrochers-Dioso, Elora Gerson, Jessica Greenberg, Ozzy Rae Horvath, Eponine Lee, Sumayya Iman Malik, Sadie Kopyto Primack, Brian Quirt, Owen Ross.
Photo by:
Peter Riddihough
On the Stratford Festival’s subscription platform, STRATFEST@HOME (details coming soon)
Prairie Theatre Exchange - (details coming soon)
Adults speak children’s exact words about love, life and the world in this fresh verbatim work. Drawn from interviews with over 40 whip-smart and brutally honest children, a dynamite adult cast allows an adult audience to hear kids’ ideas and experiences anew.The results are surprising, hilarious and moving.
CHILD-ish is a constellation of creative works: a web series, an upcoming podcast, a live performance and an inter-generational process. Aged 6-77, our CHILD-ish creative team is truly inter-generational.
Sunny speaks about his original impetus for CHILD-ish:
"The idea for CHILD-ISH came about from a time I arrived to look after a 7-year-old, to find her on the couch, head in hands, balling her eyes out. I asked what was wrong and she shared her utter devastation that her classmate didn’t want to marry her. She was really going through it, until right between sobs she started doing acrobatics on the couch and in literally only minutes, she was over it! I’ve spent longer stewing when someone hasn’t returned a text message! Her mom and I shot each other amazed looks: when did we forget how to use playfulness and presence to move through things? And I started wondering if sometimes I try too hard to "adult" and what our lives would be like if we let ourselves be a little more childish.
I wanted to see what else we could learn from children’s experiences of the world and what would happen if we listened to kids more deeply, so over several years we interviewed over 40 kids aged 5-12, either individually, in pairs or small groups. And then I’d take the transcripts and combine together multiple interviews. I’d then workshop the scripts with our inter-generational team, often adding in new layers of verbatim material from the conversations with our young collaborators"
Premiering June 2021! Sign up to our newsletter below to be the first to receive the free launch event invite.
Episode 1: You would have some company
Episode 2: Ghost friends
Episode 3: You need to ask before…
Episode 4: HELLOOO!
Directed by Sunny Drake and Peter Riddihough
Coming in 2022!
After sold out work-in-progress showings at the SummerWorks Festival (Canada,2019), unfortunately the trajectory towards the world premiere live production wasPOSTPONED DUE TO COVID.
As the work tours, local children will participate in part of the performance.
“Terrific.. A bracing, funny, thoughtful exercise.”
- Slotkin Letter (Canada)
“A little reminder that children are wise beyond their years… Earns (and deserves) its laughs and pulls on the heartstrings”
- Broadway World (Canada)
“A real treat...”
Mooney on Theatre (Canada)
“[CHILD-ISH]isn't afraid to go to serious places... The kids' ideas around consent are revelatory.”
- Now Toronto (Canada)
“Fascinating and very funny and thought-provoking.”
- Drew Rowsome Review (Canada)