Children’s arts festival ‘Once Upon A Festival’ coming to a location near you during June

The Theatre Royal, in Bury St Edmunds, has announced the return of the Children’s Arts Festival, Once Upon A Festival.

Accessible in theatres, schools and communities, the festival aims to promote arts for everyone and this year runs from Sunday to Friday, June 10 to 22.

The well-stocked list of events available to schools has just been rolled out, featuring shows such as Daryl Beeton’s A Square World, Monstro Theatre’s Bookstory, Norwich Puppet Theatre’s Pied Piper and many more great shows for schools to choose from.

Last year the festival provided 13 productions at partner venues with an additional 13 reaching families and schools. In total 61 events were programmed, 28 schools took performances in their own spaces for 32 performances and a further eight schools visited partner venues making a total of 36 different schools participating in the festival from Suffolk and Norfolk.

To help engage the children even further 27 sessions were provided to deliver post-show enrichment workshops reaching a total of 1,608 children. Overall the festival reached a total of 5,602 audience members.

As well as the schools programme, Once Upon A Festival also includes family shows at partner venues across the region.

The Theatre Royal will be staging Cinderella, The Owl and the Pussycat and The Gruffalo’s Child as part of the festival.

The Schools’ Programme full listing:

A Square World (Daryl Beeton)
Bookstory (Monstro Theatre)
Boys Don’t (Half Moon, Apples and Snakes)
Found (DancingStrong)
Light Steps (DancingStrong)
Me & My Bee (ThisEgg)
One Item Only (Theatre Royal Bath)
Pied Piper (Norwich Puppet Theatre)
The Buildy-Uppy Dance Show (Anatomical)
The Children in the Moon (The Makeshift Ensemble)
The Junk Orchestra KS1 & KS2 (Saul)
Thumbelina (Norwich Puppet Theatre)
We Come From Far Away (NIE Theatre)
Young Herberts Horrors (Half Moon)

Graffiti Classics (Graffiti Classics)