Children's Theatre Company — Attraction in Minneapolis

My wife and I had seen The Grinch (and Peter Pan) a few years ago with our now 11 year old daughter. This year, my 70 year old parents bought us all tickets for Christmas (11 year old couldn’t attend). They had never attended a CTC show and neither had my 2 and 5 year olds. So, it was intended to be a very special experience for all! My wife and I were excited to see how the young kids enjoyed the play, since all of our kids were finally at an age that we would consider visiting the theater more often. Well....after this experience, we may just have to visit alternative venues. We attended the third to the last show of The Grinch. When we entered the theater, we were told that CTC was ‘going green’ (aka: cheap) and had no more programs available. This made our party pretty upset, especially since it was our little kids first CTC play and my mothers good friends granddaughter was in the play (one of the main reasons they bought tickets to this particular play). To make matters worse, on the way out, the usher was collecting programs to reuse for future performances and was incredibly rude about giving my mother and my wife each a programs (two programs out of the the 5 tickets that were purchased), even after she knew how desperate we were for a copy of the program from the start. I myself have been to a fair amount of plays and really see the value in attending the theater and have never experienced anything like this before. It was like...Thanks for buying your tickets (at full price), don’t let the door hit you on the way out. Ironic that we were there to see The Grinch... I am all for reusing, etc., but a place like CTC should be more invested in their visitors full experience. We shouldn’t be penalized for attending one of the final shows. If my mom didn’t have someone in the play that she was specifically there to see and/or if it wasn’t my kids first CTC play, it wouldn’t have been as big like of a deal. But for Tom and the ushers to act like this was no big deal (not doing anything to find a solution) and for the female usher to respond in such a ‘put out’ way at the end of the performance too, is pretty poor and inexcusable to say the least. My parents were outraged and my wife was pretty rude back to the young lady. I can’t believe she didn’t ‘get it’. I hope the CTC figures there stuff out before they ruin anyone else’s experience. There just has to be a better way to handle something as simple as play programs at a theater. I am sure the money saved by this type of approach is far less than the amount lost by people never attending a CTC again in the future. I contacted CTC (filled out survey) and after a week, no...

My sister and I saw Abysinnia this last weekend. We sat on aisle seats right by the doors. Keep in mind an usher was at the door just behind us. We had 3 gentleman - one in particular- just behind us. Through the entire show he was clapping and yelling incredibly loud. It was as if he was at a rock music concert. He was clapping as if he was banging 2 boards together. It was outrageously loud and obnoxious. It ruined the entire show. I mentioned it to the usher and she said she would ask him to stop. Either he ignored her or she did not ask him. I asked her a 2nd time and she asked if I wanted to move. At that point why would I have to move?. It was towards the end. I gather he refused to stop. By that time I had already turned around once to ask him to stop. I was ignored!!!Now I turned around again and raised my voice. That takes a lot for me to do in this type of venue.. Needless to say I was furious. I requested to speak with a manager- Josie- who did nothing except find someone else supposedly in charge. It just so happened to be the exact person who was clapping or the friend of who was doing the obnoxious clapping and screaming - not cheering. This was shockingly an employee and manager. I might add i saw this person walking around with a glass of wine prior to the show. Really... employees are allowed to drink on the job??? He was incredibly rude and unprofessional. He was well within my space and I noted it and of course he denied it. I was spoken to rudely and as if a child. There was zero understanding and customer service. We should have had our money refunded! I cannot believe this was an employee and likely his friends or guests. This was totally unacceptable. I would give this experience a 0 if I could. Needless to say we would not return or advise anyone to...

Parents - Be aware!

Our daughter was so excited for theater camp! But a few days before it started she received messages from the camp counselors asking her to introduce herself and share her personal pronouns. Having never been asked this question before she was uncomfortable and came to me. When I inquired about this, the staff told me that yes, it is their education policy to discuss personal pronouns with the campers. Can we just stop and acknowledge that this was a stranger contacting my child and asking about her sexual identity!?

We wholeheartedly agree that everyone deserves love and respect no matter what. But gender identity discussions are not what we signed her up for and I am NOT ok with CTC introducing topics of sexual identity to my child. In conversation with our daughter we decided to pull her out of the camp.

Despite the fact that we qualified for a discount due to income, they would not give us a refund, instead, offering us credit to use for another class. We appreciated the gesture, but it did not solve the problem for us as they would have had the same discussionsin other classes. We wish Children's Theatre Company would just let kids learn the arts and leave the discussions about genser and sexual identity to the parents.

Most recently, we gave CTC another chance and attended Cookin' as a family which was absolutely amazing! Our whole family LOVED it. We were laughing the entire time.

My advice to parents is to be discerning. I would still absolutely NOT let my child attend a camp or classes here or have any kind of unsupervised contact with staff or counselors becauseof their education policy. But with careful review about what the content was, we would definitely see anther show together...