Going to the theater with your parents is not the same as going to the theater with your teachers.

BarcelonaThe Lemon class and the Strawberry class from a Barcelona school take their places on benches placed on the same stage. Teachers and chaperones ask for silence and order because the show is about to begin. "Don't tap your feet." "It's starting now." "Pay attention." "Xxt. Let's be quiet, please." Before them begins a simple and tender puppet show, with live music, careful lighting, and minimalist sets that transport them to a completely new universe: the life of Numa and the rag rabbit his mother gives him, with whom he lives imaginary adventures.

Spontaneity overcomes any restraint. Some get up to approach the stage. Others clap their hands. Others express emotion. And, above all, they respond to what they see and understand. "Numa." "What's inside?" "A rabbit, a rabbit." "A present." During the forty-five minutes the performance lasts, all kinds of reactions are felt, but they are never the same. This is how Pau, Laia, and Mireia, the artists who lead the show, experience it. Numa at the Teatre Lliure, and they've found that no two performances are the same. Reactions depend on the audience, their ages, and also their companions. It's not the same going with parents as with a class. "With families, the performance is perhaps calmer, and it's easier for them to sit still, but coming with school gives them the freedom to grasp and understand what they want," the three actors agree. "They connect more with the school," they add, aware that in their case, the fact that the story is real and relatable also helps capture the attention of the youngest children.

From the Teatre Lliure, they corroborate this theory, and this autumn they've been able to verify it with more than one of the productions they've staged. The head of the Teatre Lliure's educational program, Alícia Gorina, believes that school performances are "more expansive, free, and uninhibited" than those with families, where the adult gaze and a less familiar environment seem to influence how children connect with the show.

Whether it's because they've prepared the session in the classroom—theater provides guidelines for positioning the children—or because there's a connection with the other spectators—they're friends and classmates, and there's no embarrassment, only trust—or because their gaze isn't so directed—they don't have a parent making them focus on their parents. Children's audiences at school and at home are and react very differently. "At school, children focus on what they want, they're more independent and have to do it for themselves," says Gorina, who sees it as part of the learning acquired by going to the theater.

More focused, less scattered, and more concentrated

In NumaThe environment and packaging of the performance have slowed down the audience's energy levels, but not all plays achieve the same result. Those that demand even more participation elicit more active children, while those that are more abstract perhaps elicit more thoughtful ones. But what theater does achieve more universally is that children leave "more focused and concentrated, and less scattered." Gorina believes that having to pay attention for a considerable time, follow specific stimuli, and understand them helps produce this reaction in young children.

Reaching the whole world

School performances also have another advantage: they allow theater to reach everyone, including children from families who cannot afford it or who lack the knowledge to attend. "Access to culture is a fundamental right, and schools have a certain duty to ensure that everyone can have a theatrical experience," says Gorina, who describes theater as a "social and communicative" experience that everyone should know "exists."