Coffee Shop Theater

I played house and school and library with my friends when I was young. These were occupations and settings with which we were familiar, and our imaginative play was a way of stumbling into growing up. When I grew up I became a housewife, a teacher, and then a librarian.

Today, I observe and participate in my grandchildren’s imaginative play.

Many years ago we converted the top floor of our two-story garage into a playhouse. In the playhouse I keep a number of my fun collectibles, including tin ware coffee pots. There is also a rescued neon cappuccino sign.  (See pic.)

 

When my grandchildren come to visit they like to play in the playhouse. But they are not playing house, or school, or library. Instead, their favorite scenario seems to be “Coffee Shop.”

They place a table in the center of the playhouse to act as the coffee shop’s counter. Then they label my various tin pots with scrawled signs that read: cappuccino, decaff, latte, and  regular. They pull out paper cups I keep on hand, and monopoly money. My husband and I are pressed into service as customers.

When this first happened, I was only mildly surprised. After all, the pots and the cappuccino sign lend themselves to a coffee house setting. And since they live in a university town with lots of coffee shops, it is not surprising that at sometime they might invent this sort of role playing. What has surprised me a bit more is how the game has evolved over the last two years.

Now a new play unfolds upon the coffee house stage. Grandma and Grandpa must enter the shop as perspective employees coming in to interview for a job.

We are each individually quizzed as to our preference for tea or coffee, what our favorite color is, have we ever had a job before, and how might we greet a customer? Our grandson or granddaughter dutifully jots down the answers to questions on a pad of paper. In the end one of us, usually my husband, will get the job. That’s because I am regulated to play any of a number of nutty characters—none of which my grandchildren will hire. (Smart kids.)

All good fun. But what fascinates me is the evolution of their play to include a series of job interviews. Why? I wondered. Their parents have had the same good steady jobs for years, and my husband and I are retired. Why this change from straight “Coffee Shop?”

I can only guess that it is some response to these economic times when so much of what they hear on the radio and on television is about the bottoming-out of the job market. Their imaginative play, seems to me, to underscore their take on the world. Just as I played house in the fifties and sixties, because a large part of a woman’s world was in the home, they play coffee shop because they see that as where adults mingle today. And because they know about the importance of jobs these days, their play seems to reflect this. Who knows, perhaps one day one of my grandchildren will work in a coffee shop or be the CEO of a large chain of coffee shops. We’ll see.

Watch your children play when they are not being directed by adults. What are they acting out? Let yourself be directed by them within the world of their play . . . fascinating and fun.

Ciao!

Shutta