[4] Marks was very insistent in these early days that Children's Arena Theatre plays be educational as well as entertaining as she noted "I don't want the cast to go to the schools, leave after the performances and then be forgotten.
It appointed David Young, a member of the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry, theatre-in-education team, a playwright and trained drama teacher.
During 1974 Young secured a special grant from the Australia Council to set up a sub-company within CAT that was called Common Ground.
This sub-company performed only for Melbourne's inner-city state schools, for which its work was provided free of charge - as was the case with the Belgrade's theatre-in-education team.
During Young's directorship of the company, he also directed shows for the main (charging) wing of CAT, including Simon Hopkinson's secondary school play, The Wreck of the Corsair, and Grazyna Monvid's The Battle of Lumbertub's Lane.
[6] In 1996, Rosemary Myers designed an ambitious creative project entitled AnthroPOPtrilogy, which consisted of three separate plays, Autopsy, Mass and Panacaea.
In 1999, Arena received the Honorary President's Award of the International Association of Theatre for Children and Young People (ASSITEJ).
The judging panel for the award cited Arena's multimedia approach as indicative of a new direction for theatre for young people.