Kerfuffle is an award-winning midwestern theatre and dance company devoted to creating aesthetically and emotionally engaging performances for children ages 0-6 years old. Founded in 2015, Kerfuffle centers young children as major creative partners in the development of new work and shares playful, multi-sensory performances in museums, libraries, parks, and other nontraditional spaces. Children’s imagination is at the center of Kerfuffle’s process. In order to understand what engages, delights, and surprises children, Kerfuffle’s plays are developed through creative drama workshops where young people create stories, characters, and worlds in collaboration with adult artists. Kerfuffle is a registered 501(c)3 organization and is the 2020 recipient of the Zeta Phi Eta-Winifred Ward Outstanding New Children's Theatre Company Award through the American Alliance for Theatre and Education. 

 

Each Kerfuffle production has two components:

 

1. Kerfuffle artists facilitate creative drama residencies in community spaces such as preschools, libraries, or museums to generate ideas for a show. During the residencies, Kerfuffle artists explore and play with children using improvisation, storytelling, movement and visual art to explore a central topic while observing what excites, engages, moves, and interests the children. 

 

2. A performance residency of an original show in a non traditional theatre space: a local park, a library, a museum, a zoo, a co-op community space, and so on. 

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In short, we partner directly WITH young children to create original plays FOR young children! Kerfuffle centers children as major creative partners in the development process of the plays they see.

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PRODUCTION HISTORY

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2015 - Company founded 

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2016 - The Caterpillar’s Footprint, IDEA Museum, Mesa AZ

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2016 - ShadowPlay, Arizona State University, Tempe AZ

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2017 - wonderwander, Tempe Public Library, Tempe, AZ

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2018 - The Caterpillar’s Footprint, Educare, Lincoln, NE

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2018 - Nested, The Union for Contemporary Art, Omaha, NE

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2019 - Goose and Gert, Workshop co-production with the Omaha Theater Company at Elmwood, Gifford, and Miller Parks, Omaha NE

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2019 - Firefly, OutrSpaces and Omaha Fringe Festival, Omaha NE

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2020 - Virtual Music Movement and Yoga Jams, The Lied Center

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2020 - Winner, Zeta Phi Eta-Winifred Ward Outstanding New Children's Theatre Company Award

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2021 - Goose and Gert, Night Out in the Parks Chicago

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2021 - The Conductors, Co-Production with The Connecting Routes Project at Blue Island Public Library, Harvey Public Library District, Kenosha Public Museum, Waukegan Public Library 

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2022 - Toad Hall, LoKo Arts Festival and SUNY Potsdam, NY

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2022 - The Conductors, Night Out in the Parks Chicago

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2023 - The Conductors, Night Out in the Parks Chicago; Kerfuffle obtains 501(c)3 nonprofit status. 

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2024 - The Conductors school tour

 

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