BY Jenn Q. Goddu

Alyn Cardarelli is immersed in family theatre. He and his wife Karen, co-founded Emerald City Theatre Company 10 years ago, so he knows what most people still think of when they consider theatre aimed at kids and their parents.

There’s a perception, he concedes, that adult theatre is all subtext and “what you pull out of it,” while kids theatre is all about being preached at.

But that’s exactly the kind of theatre Cardarelli and the folks at Emerald City don’t want to produce. “You don’t have to hit kids over the head with a message,” he said. “I hate shows that talk down to kids. We want to write to the smartest kids in the room.”

Cardarelli says family theatre is changing now and there is “less and less” of a difference between what is considered adult fare and what young audiences will enjoy. “I think good family theatre is becoming more and more like what we consider theatre for adults, without, of course, nudity or cussing. Of course, there are places you’re not going to go.”

Dado, who is directing Emerald City’s current show, A Nutcracker Christmas, is also known for helming shows targeted at a more adult audience. But she said she too sees no difference between staging a show for kids or adults. “I don’t really feel like we approach it all that differently. We’re still telling a story, still trying to tell the best story you can tell in the best way you can tell it.”

Perhaps it is just this attitude that has helped Emerald City become one of the city’s top theatre companies in terms of attendance. When the Cardarellis started the company in 1996, it was pulling in audiences of 3,000 to 4,000. In the 2005-06 season approximately 80,000 people saw the company’s shows.

It helps that Emerald City decided in 2002 to add an arts education program that puts them in Chicagoland schools, and in 2003 to build up a touring arm.

“We’re making it easier for them to come to an Emerald City production by literally going to them,” said Karen Cardarelli, the company’s executive artistic director.

These initiatives have helped Emerald City double in size over the past two years. It now has 11 full and part-time employees. Karen Cardarelli credits the burst of growth over the past two years to a changing economy “We, like many theatres, struggled during those post 9/11 years. Sometimes you just need to survive, and we made sure that we did that.”

Patiently adhering to the company’s mission and introducing the touring and education component made the difference, she said.

Karen noted that the company’s aim has always been to create another option for families to have a good time together. From the start, the Cardarellis have been aware their competition is “movies and video games and TV and the things that kind of take a family away from each other.”

Noting the cultural shift with more parents both working, and working longer hours, and entertainment becoming increasingly segmented, Emerald City set out to give families a way to spend their rare time together.

Yet focusing on family theatre does have its drawbacks in terms of audience retention. “It’s tricky to grow with this kind of theatre because, when you think about it, we have a lot of turnover,” Alyn Cardarelli said. “If you’re aiming your story to children who are between five and 10, well, sooner or later, they become 11 and 12 year-olds and families stop subscribing.”

That’s part of the reason Emerald City keeps in mind both a demographic (families with children aged three to 10) and, as Karen Cardarelli puts it, a “psychographic.” She said, “The psychographic that I’m interested in is families that would never, ever consider theatre an option.”

It means Cardarelli typically challenges directors, actors and designers with the knowledge that she wants Emerald City’s “productions to be warm, friendly, comfortable places and experiences.”

What else makes an Emerald City show distinct?

Both Cardarellis have improvisation training and say their shows embrace the Chicago improv style. It means, Alyn said, “That at some moment the script might just stop and anything can happen.”

This reflects a keen appreciation of the power of audience interaction, Karen said. “Besides being incredibly entertaining it’s also a really powerful self-esteem builder for kids.”

Emerald City aims to cultivate “a very fun, carefree energy in all of the shows,” she said. “We don’t want you politely sitting there as polite as possible. We don’t want the parent worried that the child is going to speak out and everyone is going to stare and glare. We want that excitement and energy.”

Another key to the company’s success is its determination to always take children to imaginative locales, Dado added. “There’s always going to be spectacle.”

Emerald City (its name plucked from The Wizard of Oz) also tends to pick familiar properties, Karen Cardarelli conceded. “We need [families] to feel safe in their choice,” she said. “We do put out titles that are going to excite them either because they are familiar titles, like Snow White or because they love the idea behind the theme.” As an example of the latter she pointed to Captain Virtue, a show that had an unfamiliar title but which was immediately accessible to audiences since it put superheroes on stage.

The key then, Cardarelli continued, is to give the safe or familiar property a more innovative twist. “I ask the artists to figure out how to tell the story in a new and surprising way and this is where we work really hard to fuse art forms,” she said.

Snow White earlier this season incorporated puppetry and a concept that a 1900s traveling theatrical troupe was performing the original fairy tale story. “It was a new way to tell the story that had a level there for parents to really have fun with,” she said. “Entertaining both the parents and the kids is a huge and important challenge that all of us have.”

Another ongoing challenge is anticipating the future interests of fickle kids. “What kids are interested in today is going to be completely different in about two years. We have to constantly keep educating ourselves in what’s the next thing? What’s the next way to tell the story that’s going to excite them? What’s the next story that they feel they’ve got to see on stage?”

Now, even more companies in Chicago are seeking to answer those questions. But Emerald City embraces the increased attention lately paid to family theatre. “There’s room for more and we need more,” Karen Cardarelli said.

Her husband added: “The fact that there are more choices is a good thing. As soon as you see one of us, as soon as you take your kids to a family theatre and you have a good experience, you are going to be more likely to either see a show from the same place again or see a show from somewhere else.

“When you think about it, seven million people in Chicago, it’s not like we all can’t become big. There’s a huge untapped potential for audiences.”

Karen Cardarelli also suggests there is a lot of work yet to be done in family theatre. “The national canon of scripts for family theatre is so tiny compared to what the adult theatre world has to select from.”

Her husband believes the current focus on family theatre will help on that front. “All of the attention that’s being put on children’s theatre is really inspiring the next generation of playwrights, the next people who are going to be writing those kids shows.”

A Nutcracker Christmas runs Nov. 19-Dec. 31 at the Apollo Theatre, 2540 N. Lincoln Ave., Chicago. The show is best suited for audiences aged three and up. Call 773/935-6100 for tickets or visit www.emeraldcitytheatre.com