Honolulu Theatre for Youth membership program brings the stage home

When the pandemic started back in the spring, the Honolulu Theatre for Youth darkened its stage and produced a television program, “The HI Way,” a variety show blending music, comedy and education about Hawaii.

Though thrown together during those frantic times — theater staff worked from home to put together shows for nine straight weeks — the show proved so popular that HTY produced a second season, and is currently working on a third. What’s more, HTY is now developing a slew of virtual content to help parents develop their children’s theatrical talents at home.

“Instead of closing our doors or scaling back to save costs, we have pointed our entire team of professional educators and theatrical artists at addressing the lack of quality local educational content, and we are delighted to be able to launch a whole new wave of digital offerings to educators and families across the state,” said Eric Johnson, HTY’s artistic director, in a statement.

The content will be available through an affordable membership program that will provide teaching material, programming and other support.

“You can pay $10 a month now and you have access,” said Reiko Ho, HTY’s artistic associate for marketing. “It’s kind of like a zoo or museum membership. You have drama resources, activities for families, and teachers get a free membership as our gift to teachers.”

Each month members receive new creative content, such as a series of videos currently on the organization’s website that demonstrates how to create “A Play in Five Fun Steps.” There will also be materials on social-emotional learning, and the basics of theater.

“For the littlest ones, we have some puppetry activities, we have things about your feelings, we have activities about communicating,” Ho said. “There’s a whole library that has been created. All of the ones for families are things that can be done at home with your siblings, with stuff you have at home, or your body. There’s one on basic creative movement.”

In addition to the online content, tickets and discounts will be included in the membership program when it is safe for in-person events and classes.

Members will also have access to five newly produced shows, to be posted online in upcoming months; the first show — “Da Holidays” — is already available. The show is a collection of short stories and sketches, that present good, bad and funny moments of the holidays in Hawaii.

While some of the other titles will be familiar, such as “Duke,” Moses Goods’ one-man show about the life of Duke ­Kahanamoku, the shows are not simply archival footage of previous years’ productions, Ho said.

“There’s a couple that are classics that have been re-imagined for small screen, and there’s some new offerings,” she said. “They’re all new in terms of how they’re being presented.”

Ho’s own play, “The Carp Who Would Not Quit,” was about to go on tour in the spring when the pandemic shut it down. Instead it was shot on video and will be available to members in January. “We’re still trying to keep it interactive and it’s for our smallest audience members, preschoolers and up,” she said.

“Da Holidays” will also be broadcast on local television at 9 p.m. today on KHNL and from Dec. 22-26 (check TV listings for times and channels).

For more information, call 839-9885 or visit membership.htyweb.org.