The Children's Theatre of Cincinnati

The Children’s Theatre of Cincinnati is the oldest children’s theatre in the country (and is the only professional theater in the region that devotes its entire MainStage season to children).  We bring 105,000 people downtown annually.  We reach over 70,000 students through our TCT on Tour productions, and TCT Academy offers arts training to children in a variety of disciplines. We are creating the arts patrons and performers of our city’s future.

Our TCT MainStage at the Taft series includes daytime performances for school audiences and weekend performances for the public.  Four Broadway-quality production runs are held each year (of which one is a world-premiere musical), with individual shows formatted into one-hour, family-friendly events. For each production, we present seven performances for public audiences and ten performances for school students, including one special sensory-friendly performance for select shows.

TCT on Tour brings the magic of live theatre directly to those who would otherwise be unable to enjoy it. We typically tour six productions each season, serving children of all ages with titles taken from classic literature, fairy tales, history and other works studied in school curricula. The acting troupe travels with innovative sets, which are designed to be both portable and visually enticing. TCT on Tour prides itself on productions that are educational and entertaining, as well as affordable for schools and other venues across the broad geographic spectrum of Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana and beyond.

TCT on Tour includes the WorkShop division, which takes a teaching artist directly into individual classrooms or after school programs, for a more interactive arts integration experience.  WorkShops we offer examine contemporary concerns through the introduction of historical figures, such as The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Harriet Tubman; while other WorkShops bring social topics such as healthy eating, self-esteem and anti-bullying to life through theatre, music, writing and role-playing.

TCT Academy offers arts training to children in a variety of disciplines through our 14-week, one hour/week class sessions, our one-week themed summer camps for introductory arts makers or our audition-based, three-week STAR Camp Red Bank program and one-month, audition-based STAR Intensive NKU summer program for children with demonstrated talent and interest in the performing arts.