For more than a decade, the Story Pirates have given theatrical life to tales written by children, teaching creative writing and performing for more than 100,000 kids in more than 250 schools since 2003. This week, they spent time doing workshops and running assembly performances at both Isla Vista Elementary and the Crane School, and will be presenting even more of those students’ sagas this Sunday at UCSB’s Campbell Hall. Here’s Producing Director Gabe Jewell on what to expect:
What’s the Story Pirates formula? Our mission is to celebrate the words and ideas of kids, so a lot of the work we do involves teaching kids creative writing and then taking their writing and turning it into a big, ridiculous sketch-comedy musical to celebrate their work.
Do you have a set performance, or is it a blank slate each time? We have a large collection of stories that we call our greatest hits, so we choose from those, and then we use a couple stories from kids in the community as new material. Every show also has an improvised portion, where we’re creating a story on the spot from suggestions that kids in the audience give.