Children’s Theatre of Charlotte’s idea to spread kindness catches on. Here’s how to join.

The Kindness Project started small. But most acts of kindness do.

“It was 2016, and I was in a board meeting,” said Peter Flur, a retired engineer and a board member at Children’s Theatre of Charlotte for 12 years. “Adam (Burke, the artistic director) gets up and introduces this idea. He’s talking about the current state of our discourse and how the dialogue is really charged. Everyone’s beating up on each other. There’s no civility.”

Flur continued: “Adam says, Linda (Reynolds, the former managing director) walked into my office with a list of the top 10 books on kindness for children. And it sparked an idea. People can get sympathy. They can have empathy. But you can’t get kindness. Kindness is an action word. You have to do something to be kind.”

Burke and Reynolds wanted to turn some of those books on kindness into plays.

“It stuck in my head,” Flur said. “And I came home that afternoon and said to my wife: ‘This is what we’ve got to do.””

Three days later, Dorlisa and Peter Flur were in Reynolds’ office, discussing her vision and Burke’s statement, “Kindness is a verb; not a noun.” They signed on to help fund an initiative to put kindness center stage.

The Kindness Project was born that day. It launched in 2017 and has since reached over 20,000 people. And that’s just the number that Children’s Theatre of Charlotte can measure in ticket sales. There’s no way to know how many people have been touched by the ripple effect. Kindness tends to beget more kindness.

So far, four books have been brought to life on the stage. A fifth is in development and will be part of the 2023-24 season. The four produced so far are:

• “Last Stop on Market Street” (2018-19 season)

• “A Sick Day for Amos McGee” (2018-19 season)

• “The Invisible Boy” (2019-20 season)

• ”Tropical Secrets: Holocaust Refugees in Cuba” (2020-21 and 2021-22 seasons)

In all four theater shows, an act of kindness changes someone.

Not all 10 books were transferable to the stage, Burke said. “But we are constantly on the lookout for books that are thematically appropriate for the stage — and what we would consider Kindness Project books.”

Children’s Theatre of Charlotte is one of a handful of children’s theaters nationally with the resources to commission new works, Burke said. And everyone benefits.

“Playwrights are the creative driving force of the field,” Burke said. “And if somebody is not supporting them and giving them opportunities to create new work, then we’ll end up doing the same plays over and over again.”

Kindness spreads

Word of the Kindness Project started spreading like an act of kindness itself.

“One of our Sandbox families had seen a few of Children Theatre’s productions and thought it would be … beneficial for our families,” said Mara Campolungo, co-founder and executive director of The Sandbox. The Charlotte nonprofit organization serves families whose child has cancer or another life-altering illness.

About 40 families from the group — a total of nearly 175 people — attended a special Zoom screening of “The Invisible Boy” this May. “The kids and parents were absolutely thrilled,” Campolungo said. “If we all want to make a difference in the world, this is a must-see.”

Other theaters have expressed interest in doing their own version of The Kindness Project, Burke said. And some of the world premieres Children’s Theatre of Charlotte has staged are being produced elsewhere. For example, Birmingham Children’s Theater will stage “The Invisible Boy” next season.

In addition, the theater asked people to share their own stories of kindness on social media using #CTCKindnessProject and is sharing those in turn on its website.

Personal impact

The Kindness Project has had impacts large and small.

“It’s a reminder every day to think differently,” Flur said. “If you’re on the road, let someone in front of you.”

“But the Kindness Project has also helped set a direction for the Children’s Theatre,” Flur said. “Kindness has interwoven itself into the fabric of the Children’s Theatre in everything it does. And even some of the shows that are not technically part of the Kindness Project have really taken on its model and accentuated the idea that kindness matters.”

Kindness came full circle for the Flur family, too.

The Flurs’ daughter, Arella, now 20, grew up going to and performing in Children’s Theatre productions. Once she hit middle high school, she went on to work on adult productions around Charlotte.

“Adam brought in (playwright) Gloria Bond Clunie to adapt Matt de la Pena’s ‘Market Street’ for the stage,” Peter Flur recalled. “I had gone to the Children’s Theatre to watch a workshop during the fall of Arella’s junior year in high school. She knew she wanted to study theater in college — at Michigan, Carnegie Mellon, Northwestern or one of the conservatory schools. She didn’t know which direction she was going to go. And Gloria introduces herself and says she’s been at Northwestern for 20 years. I said, ‘Would you mind spending five minutes with my daughter?’” Gloria did — and told them to call if they ever wanted to tour the Chicago campus.

They did.

Flur figured they’d spent 20 minutes with Clunie once the family reached the campus. “But no,” he said. “She spends the entire day with us. Every place we go, she stops whoever and says, ‘Excuse me. This is a prospective student. Can you tell her why she should come to Northwestern?’”

“They were working on the 30th anniversary performance for the School of Communications, which houses the theater department. Stephen Colbert, Julia Louis-Dreyfus — all these big-name Northwestern graduates — are going to be at this gala. And rehearsal was the day we were there. They’ve got this full Broadway stage set up, and the students are rehearsing. And they took the time to be interested in us.”

“When it’s time to leave, we pack up our bags, walk down the stairs and Arella is in tears,” Flur said. “She’s like, ‘This is it. This is where I need to be.’ We had visited 10 schools, and she hadn’t had that reaction. It was all Gloria. It all comes back to her kindness.”

Arella Flur is now in her junior year at Northwestern. What’s more, Northwestern has a youth theater group that recently wrapped its production of “Last Stop on Market Street.” Clunie was the director.

“Gloria texted me the playbill and said she wanted me to know how this show continues to affect people,” Flur said.

Kindness continues

Crystal Hubbard’s award-winning book, “Catching the Moon: The Story of a Young Girl’s Baseball Dream,” will be workshopped in 2022 and premiere at Children’s Theatre of Charlotte in its 2023-24 season.

The story centers on Marcenia Lyle Stone (1921-96), a Black girl who grew up to become “Toni Stone,” the first woman to play for an all-male professional baseball team.

Kindness shows up in several places in the play. “A boy she plays with reaches out on her behalf to express how hard she works and how much she deserves to be on the team,” Burke said. “And a baseball scout brings her a pair of cleats. Cleats are a requirement, and she doesn’t have a pair.”

“A simple act of kindness,” Flur said, “can change a person’s life.”

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