By Kristen Nevarez Schweizer

This summer offers San Diego parents, grandparents, and cool aunts and uncles two terrific opportunities to create a core memory. If you’ve been on the fence about taking a kiddo (five years and older) to a real theatre for the first time, consider this a nudge onto the side of YES. Beauty and the Beast: the Musical is making its first North American Broadway tour in 25 years, and The SpongeBob Musical has a surprisingly excellent score and oodles of laughs.

I have some tips to set up children for a magical night.

1. Watch the source material. Then tell them it’s not exactly the screen — the 1991 Academy Award-winning Beauty and the Beast is 84 minutes long. The stage musical is a two-act evening, with a few new songs. Tim Rice and Alan Menken wrote new numbers just for Broadway, which you can preload for your kids by calling them “bonus content.”

Watching SpongeBob episodes is a good refresher, so you can delight in the creative aspects of the artists’ choices in costuming and staging as they adapt the cartoon to the stage.

2. Singing-along is for the car ride, not the seats — I adore any child who knows all the lyrics to ‘Be Our Guest,’ so long as their enthusiasm peaks in the parking lot. Ushers will remind most kids, but when you let kids know ahead of time, I recommend framing the ‘no singing’ rule as a treat: everyone wants to hear the live artists singing for us fully.
3. Check sightlines and ask for the booster seat — When you sit down, choose the seats with the best sightlines and give them to your shorter kiddos. (The Civic Theatre has stacks of booster seats right inside the auditorium door as you’re handed the playbill. There are two height options on the seat; flip the seat upside down to lose or gain inches. Grab it even if you’re not sure, because you don’t want to realize your kid is peering around a tall person once the show has begun.)
4. Let them dress their part — Whether it’s a SpongeBob t-shirt, a twirly yellow dress, or cozy pajamas, if it’s what makes them feel comfortable and confident, let them wear it. Dressing up (or down) for the theatre is part of the magic, and a kid who feels special is going in as a kid who’s primed to have a wonderful night.
5. Grab a hot dog beforehand and a snack inside – At the Civic, you’ll feel like a New Yorker if you take advantage of the hot dog stand that’s always parked outside the theatre plaza. Liberty Station has plenty of restaurants, including the epic Liberty Station Public Market.

Most theatres have food options for purchase in the lobby, but if you’re the sneaky type who brings your own for smaller children, make sure it’s in a silent baggie rather than loud cellophane. (Nothing that crinkles! Nothing messy! Nothing smelly! Nothing distracting!) A happy belly goes a long way for a long show, and it’s less likely to require a bathroom break than a beverage.

6. Give them a heads up on the sound and potential spooky part — A live orchestra is louder than one expects, and the opening of Beauty has a witch, a curse, and a prince who turns into a beast, which can all be a little intense for the youngest theatre goers. Preparation — and a hand to hold — go a long way toward a calm first ten minutes.
7. Use intermission like it’s mandatory — both shows have a standard runtime of two hours and thirty minutes, including the 15-minute intermission, so definitely take the break. Stretch your legs! 

At the Civic, check out the massive chandelier (fun facts: it has 52,000 sparkling Bavarian crystals, weighs 2,800 pounds, has 186 light bulbs, and takes a whole week to clean). Kids love it when you hand them your phone and let them take the pictures. At Cygnet, enjoy the beautiful fountain area directly off the theatre. They can run a bit between acts.

8. Let them laugh, clap a little too early, too loud, or not at all — no singing along, but clapping and cheering and laughing is food for the actors on stage. Let them be the loudest, happiest person in the theatre for the glorious rounds of applause. It’s also ok if they’re quiet and observant. This is their chance to learn what kind of theatre goer they are!

The high-caliber excellence of both these productions is a worthy and memorable treat for Summer 2026.

Broadway San Diego’s Beauty & The Beast performances run July 7-12 at the San Diego Civic Theatre; tickets at BroadwaySD.com.

The SpongeBob Musical performances run June 10-July 12 at the Joseph Clayes III Theatre: tickets at https://cygnettheatre.org/.