Kids and cult-cha

Answer: 5 minutes. Maybe 6.

I'll give you the "Jeopardy" style question/answer (quanswer?) to the above a little later on in this post.

First a word or two about efforts to get the young ones a little bit of theater culture.

I think it's a good thing _ duh! _ and I have the (occasionally) drowsy child to prove to back up my claim. My boy Jeremy, age 8, has been dragged along to every "Stomp"-ing, "Cats"-like "42nd Street"-ed Cirque du Soleil bit of live entertainment that his determined dad considers even the slightest bit within his age range. There are things I know he's not ready for, and things he really digs ("Dr Doolittle," saints preserve us, was a favorite). Yes, he often goes to bed late on school nights. Yes, he probably enjoys movies more, but by God, he's going to these things because I think he will get something out of all this.

Which is why I take particular delight in organizations like East L.A. Classic Theatre which _ last Saturday _ had offered a free performance of its 85 minute version of Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing" at the San Gabriel Civic Auditorium.

Prior to the community performance, school children throughout the San Gabriel Unified School District saw this Mariachi "Much Ado..." Per East L.A. Classic Theatre's website, the production was created in response to "... California State Board of Education’s history and social science curriculum mandate requiring 4th grade students to study '…the social, political, cultural, and economic life and interactions among people of California from the pre-Columbian societies to the Spanish mission and Mexican rancho periods.'" So it's a little bit of history as well wrapped up into broad entertainment.

The production next plays Los Angeles Trade Trech College later this month. That school will also get Artistic Director Tony Plana's adaptation of "Romeo and Juliet," a "Zoot Zuit" R and J.

East L.A. Classics has performed "Much Ado" at the Ford Amphitheatre and is in discussions about bringing the show to Pacoima. (Check out www.eastlaclassic.org.)

Yes, it's Shakespeare. Yes, my kid would probably vastly prefer to play his Gameboy, but I sincerely hope that in addition to whatever I can do for and with him, his school will get opportunities to see theater and dance, hear music, all that good stuff.

I took him to the San Gabriel performance, by the way. That 5 minutes at the top of my post was about how long he lasted before tucking his head against the seat and dozing through the entire performance. No reflection on the quality of the ent. He gets up early, and can drop like a stone in a dark room. Particularly when the show starts late (another of my pet peeves).

The battle continues.