Growing Through Arts® Retailer: Stage & Street

Stage & Street, in Sudbury, ON, has been in business for 19 years, but it was only recently that owner Evelyn Davie realized she was missing something crucial: A place for kids to play in the store while their mothers shopped.

“I have eight grandchildren and I know that [kids] need a space where they don’t have to be told they can’t touch everything,” she says.

This summer, Stage & Street went through a massive renovation, which included the creation of a new children’s corner, where Davie plans to promote the Growing Through Arts® line of books and toys.

“I saw it in Dance Retailer Magazine and I said ‘We have to have that!’” Davie says.

Located in a community of 250,000 people, Stage & Street offers both dancewear and theatrical supplies and caters to students from 13 local dance schools. The store also offers a wide selection of rental and custom-made costumes.

In the new children’s corner, kids will be able to play with the Growing Through Arts® Ballet and Music Series Alphabet Sets, as well as the Stage Scene Play Sets.

Davie was delighted to see books about ballet and music geared toward children, something she has rarely come across.

The books and toys play an important role in teaching children about the arts, something young people don’t have as much exposure to these days. When Davie was in kindergarten, she vividly remembers hearing Peter & the Wolf on a record player in school, but when she told her younger staff members about the Peter & the Wolf Symphony by Aleksandra®, they had never heard of it.

Davie, who has a theater background, is enjoying learning dance vocabulary like “arabesque” and “grand jete” from the Ballet Series Alphabet Set. “I still don’t know the proper terminology,” she laughs.

“This is wonderful,” Davie says of the Growing Through Arts® products. “I hope it really takes off.”