The Junior Theatre Festival and Broadway Junior

Since 2003, more than four thousand middle school–aged children and their teachers and directors have gathered in Atlanta, Georgia, each January during Martin Luther King Jr. weekend to celebrate musical theatre at the Junior Theatre Festival (JTF). Produced by iTheatrics (the company that adapts Broadway musicals for kids), Playbill, and Music Theatre International, the convention features ninety school or community groups who present a fifteen-minute segment from a show that they rehearsed or performed at home for professional artist adjudicators’ immediate feedback. The weekend also includes performance workshops for kids and producing workshops for adults, a showcase of musical numbers from new shows, and an elaborate distribution of awards, during which almost every group is publicly recognized. Fueled by progressive language and democratic affirmations, JTF is unabashedly profit-driven, since MTI licenses the very repertoire of musicals that the children perform. The kids who attend JTF find affirmation and community in an intense, emotion-filled weekend that celebrates musical theatre. JTF combines crass commercialism and heartfelt outreach in a seamless, exuberant event.