It was a dark and stormy night... just kidding. Long ago (in 2005), in a Bertucci’s located somewhere between their two theaters, Steve Smith of the Arlington Children’s Theater and Chris Lowey of the UnCommon Theatre in Mansfield, came up with the idea of a consortium of children’s theaters in the Boston area. They pictured a collaborative group which could be a clearinghouse for information and resources.

That winter, they wrote to over 20 theaters in the Boston area, inviting them to meet at Wheelock Famil Theatre on January 22, 2006. Since that first meeting, over a dozen theaters have participated in bi-monthly meetings, culminating in CBACT’s first-ever Children’s Theater Festival during the summer of 2008, co-hosted by the Watertown Children’s Theatre and ArsenalARTS.

Member theaters have shared resources, personnel, organizational information, costumes, sets—you name it. The organization is everything Steve and Chris had hoped it would be, and it’s becoming even more!