2019 Golden Teddy Awards — Out + About

Winner: Seattle Children’s Theatre

Seattle Children’s Theatre at Seattle Center takes the top spot again this year. The award-winning theater is one of the 20 largest regional theaters (for all ages) in the country, and voters like how it empowers young people to make new discoveries about the world around them. Look forward to next season’s lineup, which includes “Black Beauty,” “Corduroy,” “Snow White” and other productions.

Finalists

Luckily for kindie rock fans, two of the top national acts are local. Finalists Caspar Babypants (aka Chris Ballew, the lead singer of The Presidents of the United States of America) and feel-good, up-tempo band The Not-Its! are frequent favorites for live shows that the whole family can enjoy. 

Presented at five venues in the Seattle area, StoryBook Theater’s 55-minute musicals are a hit with kids (ages 3–10) who love catchy songs and clever stories. Sensory-friendly performances are a draw for neurodiverse children, but everyone can appreciate, as one parent put it, “fun music and great reworking of traditional stories to promote positive values.”

Xakary the Magician was a hit when he sawed Heidi Klum in half on “America’s Got Talent,” but his usual venue is kids’ birthday parties, where the birthday child is part of the act and every guest learns a magic trick and gets to take home a goodie bag.