A Celebration of Books, Music, and Theater, Family Style

Children of all ages and ethnicities overran the Monroe Center for the Arts as they took center stage, with their parents close by, and participated in a variety of activities at the First Annual Hoboken Family Arts Festival on Saturday. The festival, which focused on the back-to-school season and the importance of reading, was hosted by the Mile Square Theatre, a nonprofit organization promoting arts in the community, and sponsored by the Hoboken Family Alliance and Patch.

Mile Square Theatre Artistic Director Chris O'Connor said that he and another member, Darren Farrell, one of the authors featured during the event, came up with the idea last summer. "We wanted to do something to celebrate reading and the arts in our community," said O'Connor. "And we wanted to focus on content that caters to kids."

With authors on hand to read their books aloud, musicians to lead group sing-alongs, acting and dance professionals to hold theater workshops and performances, the Hoboken Family Arts Festival did just that.

Kids moved from one activity to the next and were completely engaged in the events of the day.

Bob Shea, author and illustrator of the books Dinosaur vs. Bedtime and Dinosaur vs. the Potty, welcomed a large group of children with a few questions: "Do you guys like dinosaurs? Do you like to roar?" The answer became clear as he led the group through a reading of his books and encouraged participants to roar and growl like dinosaurs. Roar and growl they did.

In a room down the hall from the theater space, a small group of children sat in a circle and participated in the Yogi Beans yoga workshop. The children were instructed to "show their turtle shell" and proceeded to bend over to form a yoga posture that did indeed resemble a turtle.

The event also included a performance of a scene from Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream by the Mile Square Theatre's Summer Drama Camp cast of 9-year-olds and one 15-year-old, as well as an interactive musical segment by performers Dave Lambert and Miss Nina that had the children hooting and hollering, clapping and stamping, and just having an all around good time.

"It's a little bit of organized chaos here today," said O'Connor. "We didn't spend a lot of money putting this together and it's all volunteer run. But, we really want to do it again and went out on a limb calling it the First Annual Family Arts Festival. I think we can expand on the success of today and come back even bigger and better next year."