A Note From our Artistic Director
Oh, the thinks you can think if you're willing to try...
In an especially touching moment of friendship, Arnold Lobel's Frog sits down to write a letter to his beloved friend Toad: "I am writing this letter, hoping that it will make you feel happy, knowing all along that unless you are happy, I cannot be."Sadly, he drops the letter in the hands of a snail to deliver.and it will take nearly the entire run time of A Year with Frog and Toad for that letter to be delivered!
Friends helping friends achieve little things. Sometimes even great things. And often, it's the friends in our lives we least expect to make a difference, that do. This season, we explore the strength of friendship; its power to bring young people together and the pain that can come from its loss.
Friendships have the power to shape our lives; even historical events, as a young girl discovers in Mulan. It can also turn a bumbling group of misfits into a killer football squad in Miss Nelson Has a Field Day or make it possible for them to put on The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.
And, sadly, the bonds of friendship can bring pain, too, when they are severed as young Jesse learns in the powerful drama, Bridge to Terabithia. And, in Where the Red Fern Grows, Billy Coleman finds that personal sacrifice for others can carry a heavy price.
As we celebrate our 16th season, we are hitting the books! Sure, we're taking time out to sing and dance our hearts away with High School Musical, but the rest of the time we'll be working together to bring some of the best-loved children's books alive on stage.
Good books have the ability to serve as windows to other worlds and as the tinder for young people's imaginations to catch fire and take flight. At Town Hall Theatre, we realize that promoting literacy and establishing good reading habits with young people is more than the right thing to do; without children and parents reading books, fewer stories would be told and we would have far fewer titles to explore on stage.
Whether it's John Glore's adaptation of the uproarious Stinky Cheese Man or a lazy ramble with two amphibious friends in the Tony award-winning musical, A Year with Frog and Toad, the season is filled with familiar books by award-winning authors. We searched high and low to find relevant, new works for young audiences. Seven out of nine shows will receive their area premiere at Town Hall Theatre this year!
Before we begin, let's go over a few new things you'll find this year at the theatre. We've added Saturday matinees to the performance runs of many of our shows this year so our younger audience members can count on getting a good night's sleep! (Parents, too!) And make sure to ask our box office staff about our Front Row V.I.Y.P. seating! We're keeping our front row seats open for our Very Important Young People at every performance so they can sit closer to the action! And, don't miss our new Dinner and a Show field-trip series for avid theatre-goers!
This season, we invite you to take a trip to the bookstore or library before you attend a show and let our theatre be a place where you and your child share the joys of reading and live stage performance. Perhaps, in the experience, you will rediscover the young person inside you.
Because, we're all in this together, aren't we?
Mark Metzger
Managing Artistic Director
