Children’s Healing Project
The Children’s Healing Project includes TheatreWorks Teaching Artists working with patients at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford, patients at the Comprehensive Eating Disorders Unit at the El Camino Hospital location, and patients and families staying at the Ronald McDonald House at Stanford while receiving care.
You can have fun like a normal kid. You can forget what is wrong with you.
— Patient
... gales of laughter coming from the rooms & a more positive patient attitude after a visit
— Hospital Administrator
With improvisation-based workshops for young patients online, TheatreWorks is in concert with the aforementioned organizations and the Palo Alto Unified School District. Each year this collaboration brings joy and laughter to patients and their families. Throughout the school year, two TheatreWorks Teaching Artists visit the hospital and support patients and their siblings in elementary, middle, and high school.
These programs and artists shed a special light in patients’ lives. During any given session, students in the dialysis unit may play a wacky version of The Voice, laughing uproariously as they disqualify each actor’s attempt to master a certain singing style. Or you might witness a group of high school students, in various stages of chemotherapy, playing with the language of Shakespeare. You may even hear young siblings of patients explaining why they were a superhero that day. Through the Children’s Healing Project, patients have the opportunity, for a short time, to forget their troubles and enjoy their creative and imaginative exploration.
For information on how hospitals and arts organizations can implement similar program, please contact artsengagement@theatreworks.org.
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