ASSITEJ Norway produces Theatre Saturday for Kids in one of Oslo’s finest performing arts venues in Oslo city centre – Sentralen. This is a high-quality performing arts-offer, at a very low cost, for kids between 0-19 years old. This project is a collaboration between Sentralen UNG and ASSITEJ Norway, in addition the project is funded by Oslo City Council. 

All productions are selected from an Open Call every six months. The call is open to anyone, but you have to be a member of ASSITEJ Norway to be programmed. The performers are paid a fee for doing two performances a day, and they are also promoted in all our SoMe-channels and network, both nationally and internationally. 

-We wanted to be able to give performing arts companies the opportunity to be more visible, also outside the Cultural Schoolbag (the Norwegian national school tours), says Ingvild Lien, general manager of ASSITEJ Norway. – Every Saturday for Kids we invite programmers, critics, artistic council members etc to come and see and meet the performers. We also write an article about the performing artists/company in our monthly newsletter. These performers perform to a young audience almost every day, so we try to make this event something more for the artist – an opportunity for collaborations and more work, says Lien. 

The performances ASSITEJ Norway program covers a large age group and makes sure that the quality is high and includes as many expressions within performing arts as possible. The ticket price is very low, this is to make it available to as many as possible. – We work hard to include people who doesn’t always find their way to the theatre. In this sense this project is just as much a social inclusion project as it is an artistic project, Lien adds.  

In 2020, due to Covid-19, we’ve had to cancel 3 performances, but 6 performances have been shown, although to a limited number of people, according to Ingvild Lien. Due to Corona-restistrictions only 40 people were allowed in the audience this fall, so ticket sales alone did not add much to the project. Luckily the Norwegian government has added extra funding to keep projects like Theatre Saturday for Kids going. Oslo City Council has also allowed for fees to be paid to the artists even when shows were cancelled. This is all a strategy to keep the performing arts alive, these artists and companies are, after all, the main supplier of performing arts to The Cultural Schoolbag. 

Now in 2021 ASSITEJ Norway hope to regain activity on a normal level, even though January proved a rough start. – We’re hoping that vaccines and the willingness to keep the performing arts sector alive will make sure that kids in Oslo still have access to a high quality performing arts offer – at a low cost, Lien says. 

You find the introduction of this season’s program on our FB-page and on www.assitej.no On our FB-page you can also see video-presentation of our last programmed performances. Feel free to contact us if you want more information on Theatre Saturday for Kids or about the performances we have programmed – we highly recommend them for when we can program internationally again!