A Day Out at the Polka Theatre for Cinderella: the AWESOME truth

Robin has recently gone to her first play at school, around the holiday season, and has been asking to go to more plays ever since. As we were looking for some good plays that all three of the children could enjoy, we came across the Polka Theatre, which has a bunch of plays aimed at younger children, as well as a great indoor and outdoor play area to explore. We booked tickets to Cinderella: the AWESOME truth, and were pretty excited!

Cinderella: the AWESOME Truth

Cinderella: the AWESOME truth is a remake on the story of Cinderella, but this time with two sisters; Cinder and Ella. Both of them are sort of ugly step sisters, as they are now step sisters to each other and are not getting along. Despite being friends before their parents got married, they are having trouble living together and being around each other all the time, while their worlds have changed so much. In their fighting, we find out that Cinder, often called Cindy, is looking to be rich and famous, at all costs, and end up liking and subscribing to some Youtubers, claiming to be fairy godmothers, but it turns out they are actually not helpful or good in any way. Meanwhile, Ella was insulted by Cindy, and ran away for a bit, to deal with her problems and anger on her own.

There is a royal ball, a prince, a cook who does not have much confidence, trolls that eat your heart, and lots of singing! Cinderella: the AWESOME truth has a big message about accepting who you are, how unique you are, and not changing for anyone. There are moments in the play where insults are spoken through, to explain that people sometimes stay things in anger, and sometimes people get upset by things that don’t really matter. There are moments where the prince doesn’t feel confident, doesn’t feel like people will love him, and lots of moments of acceptance. There is just a lot of great messages for everyone, even down to the Youtubers, who aren’t who they pretend to be behind the screen.

The cast itself was small, with only a handful of actors, and they had giant puppets for a few of the different key characters – which really brought a fun feel to the entire thing. There were moments when the cast reflected on how small they were, joking about it, which added a great feel. They were also really diverse, in their body types, in their skin colors, in their presentation, and one was disabled, but this wasn’t presented as a distinct part of the play, and instead was just how they were! Often, having a diverse amount of characters like this is only seen in select animations – so seeing a bunch of real-life people who are diverse, just being themselves, is really beneficial to children.

All three of the children really enjoyed the play, and honestly, I didn’t think that Kai would be that into it. He is in that weird tween stage where he wants to be like an adult – and all the singing and dancing felt like something he wouldn’t love, while Robin was dancing in her seat area, on her feet, loudly replying to stage members whenever they spoke. But he did, he liked the references to Youtube and picked up on a lot of the little things going on. He knew the story of Cinderella and said it was neat to see a new one that wasn’t so old feeling. Amelia also enjoyed the play, as we figured she would. There was a short intermission halfway through with ice cream, which everyone enjoyed too.

The Polka Theatre

The Polka Theatre itself is free to enter, with a great venue. Outside the main stage, there is an indoor play room, which contains a bunch of dress up items, a coloring area, a sitting area for kids, a reading area full of books, some small play things to climb on, and a magnetic block board. There are plenty of volunteers helping out too. This room is extremely clean, with lots of fun things to do. Kai even found some costumes that fit him, and enjoyed the magnetic block board, while Amelia and Robin took a look at everything from dress up to coloring to reading. The books are more like the bedtime story books we read at our home, which is perfect to read quickly while waiting for the play. We ended up spending quite some time in this area, after having a packed lunch outside. There are also a bunch of art pieces dotted around, which really add a lot of character to the building.

Outside, there is a slightly smaller play area, with quite soft ground. There is a large, two-story tree house (though without the tree) containing a bunch of windows to look out and a fire pole to slide down. The girls were a little disappointing there was no slide (as the pole is very scary) but had a great time running up and down the stars inside the little house thing, screaming out the windows along with all the other kids.

There is also a small cafe, which serves hot drinks and lunch foods, if you are interested in eating there. This cafe has a few more toys to keep small ones busy, though there were a lot of people in the cafe when we went and as the weather was great, we decided to eat outdoors. The Polka Theatre is a great local theatre, with plenty to do for younger kids, and some quality plays being preformed!

You can check out our other Days Out to see what else we’ve been up too!