I cannot recommend Peanut Butter Players. My three boys (12, 10, and 8) did The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe with them last summer. It was not a good learning environment for kids.
At the first rehearsal, my kids went in and sat around for 30 minutes before anyone even noticed they were there. There were no signs, no directions, nothing to tell them where they should be or what they should be doing. When I finally had them check in with the director, she acted like they were wasting her time. She then sent them to another room where they sat around for another 45 minutes while one of the main characters sang through all of her parts of a song. It seemed like the music coach didn't have a lesson plan or actually know who he was supposed to be rehearsing. He kept saying, "Oh, that's just your (the main character's) solo, too."
The director was rude, impatient and harsh. At the first rehearsal, I watched her repeatedly yell at a boy for not being loud enough on stage. After repeated attempts, when it was obvious that the boy was doing his best and needed to be taught how to be louder, he finally yelled back, "I can't!" and the director continued yelling, "yes, you can!" No instruction, just pressure.
At the second rehearsal, the director scolded my kids for not bringing their scripts. She had neither given them scripts, taught them how to use a script, nor told them to bring scripts with them to rehearsals.
She yelled at me for not keeping my 3-year-old quiet at rehearsal (I wasn't about to just leave my older kids there without an advocate).
At a later rehearsal, one of my boys tripped on something on stage and hurt his leg. He got yelled at for running into the scenery.
Whenever the kids in the room who weren't on stage got too loud, she would yell at them. When someone didn't understand a direction or didn't remember something, she would yell at them or shame them.
Reading back through this, I can't even believe that I made my kids finish that show. It is not good place for kids. read more