For Rebecca Abrams, seeing the Broadway musical "Movin' Out" added fuel to her passion for theater. The sixth-grader from Yonkers, N.Y., often asks her parents to buy tickets, and during the month when Broadway offers free admission for kids accompanied by paying adults, her folks oblige her.

"I like listening to the music and seeing all the people acting," she says during intermission. The show incorporates Billy Joel songs with Twyla Tharp's choreography. "I like the atmosphere."

Kids' Night on Broadway expanded to four nights for the first time this year, thanks to demand from families. The promotion - which runs from the end of January to mid-February - guarantees that for consecutive Tuesday nights there will be more young people heading for "Wicked" or "Hairspray" or "Little Women." But it also moves the theater community closer to its goal of building the next generation of audiences.

That's a major concern to those involved in the performing arts across the United States, as cuts in funding for arts education have left voids that nonprofit and other groups are trying to fill. Amid some signs that more young people are coming to Broadway shows, those who are part of the arts community in places from Manhattan to California are trying new ways to stimulate interest in live theater. Many are focused on content and exposure as ways of reaching younger audiences.

"The movement is more toward producing material that will appeal to a wider age range," says Margo Lion, a "Hairspray" producer whose next project is a stage version of "The Wedding Singer." "Our job is to make sure that this population is exposed as much as we can to the experience of going to the theater."

Family fare has taken off on Broadway (think "The Lion King," "Beauty and the Beast"), and a survey from the League of American Theaters and Producers shows that the number of kids filling seats is up slightly. In the 2003-2004 season, the league reports that nearly 1.3 million kids under 18 attended shows, the second highest turnout in more than 20 years (the highest was in 2000-01 season).

Jed Bernstein, president of the league, says that reaching kids when they're young is key. Studies show that people who were taken to the theater as children are more likely to attend in later life. He would like to see theater companies "avoid some of the audience-development challenges that ... modern dance and classical music are facing, where the audiences are graying and not being renewed."

But theater in New York and elsewhere has more competition today - from DVDs, the Internet, video games - than it did decades ago when the stage held more of the pop-culture spotlight and Broadway show tunes were hits across the country.

Offering contemporary experimental fare that attracts younger crowds is often difficult for theaters, which risk alienating their core audiences. When they do produce works with ideas that appeal to hip audiences, sometimes the problem is in the marketing. Broadway, for example, is still "antediluvian" when it comes to getting the word out, but it is utilizing the Internet more, Ms. Lion says. Still, the 20-something crowd isn't always getting the message from theaters in general, particularly in New York.

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