About Us

Educational Theatre Programs

Inspiring Healthy Choices for Twenty-Five Years

1985    Kaiser Permanente begins offering Professor Bodywise’s Traveling Menagerie for elementary school students in Ohio.

1986    Established in northern California by Kaiser Permanente Northern California, Educational Theatre Programs begins touring Professor Bodywise’s Traveling Menagerie. Shortly thereafter, we start providing shortened programs and information tables to community fairs and festivals. The full-body costumed characters from Professor Bodywise’s Traveling Menagerie prove a hit with children at the fairs. The characters teach children how to live healthier lives.

1989    To help prevent transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases among high school students, a population threatened by an increasing HIV infection rate, we create a new live theatre program, Secrets.

1991    In response to parent and teacher feedback praising Secrets and Professor Bodywise’s Traveling Menagerie and requesting a program to help middle school students cope with puberty, depression, and peer pressure, we create Nightmare on Puberty St.

1995    We create Community Troupe to reach beyond schools and better serve the community.

1998    Continuing to respond to community needs, we create and begin offering PEACE Signs, a program to encourage peaceful conflict resolution by upper elementary school students and their families.

2002    We create a new elementary school program to share information about nutrition, exercise, literacy, safety gear, conflict resolution, and not smoking – Zip's Great Day. This new program replaces The Bodywise Traveling Menagerie.

2006    To address the escalating problem of childhood obesity and related illnesses and diseases, we develop The Best Me Program. The weeklong program includes an orientation, an assembly, workshops, a Family Night, and an educator guide to promote healthy eating and active living for upper elementary school students and their families.

2009    We stop touring Zip's Great Day in order to add The Best Me Assembly to reach more elementary school students in vulnerable and low-income communities facing rapid increases in childhood obesity.  

2011    Educational Theatre Programs currently offers six different programs free of charge to communities within the Kaiser Permanente Northern California region:

  • The Best Me Assembly for grades K-6 uses dance, music, and drama to excite students and encourage active and healthy lifestyles so they can be their very best.

  • The Best Me Program for grades 3-6 encourages students and their families to be active and eat healthy.

  • PEACE Signs provides young people in grades 3-6 with skills to prevent and cope with violence in their lives.

  • Nightmare on Puberty St. enables middle school students to adjust to the physical and emotional changes they experience during puberty.

  • Secrets is a modern, informative play which empowers high school students and adults to make healthier decisions to prevent HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.

  • Community Troupe encourages wellness through costumed mascots at community health events and with small, focused, customized productions.