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2009-2010 Tour Brochure (PDF)

Teacher Resource Guides

Create-A-Play Workshops
These workshops introduce students to the basics of playwriting and are an excellent foundation for all creative writing activities. Call us for more information.

Tarradiddle Players
2009-2010 Touring Productions

Tarradiddle Players is happy to be celebrating the company's 38th season! The Players' founder, the late Constance Welsh, started the Tarradiddle Players to bring the joy and wonder of the stage to audiences who might otherwise never see live theatre, but even she might be surprised to see how much her dream has grown. The Tarradiddle Players have now performed for over one million children, in schools, community centers -- towns big and small -- across the Southeast, bringing smiles (and maybe a tear or two) to the faces of everyone they meet. And the Tarradiddle Players performances on the Children's Theatre MainStage are consistently among the best loved by critics and audiences alike. We now offer a special Early Childhood tour for Preschool audiences, and we can tailor a Create-A-Play workshop especially for you!

Has someone in your family ever felt different or out of place, maybe a little lonely or left out? How would you treat someone new, someone who might look or sound strange to you? New Kid is a unique, award-winning play that tells the story of a boy named Nick who leaves the fictitious country of Homeland and comes to America with his parents. Through the theatrical device of having the American characters speak an invented phonetic language while Nick and his parents speak English, the audience immediately shares Nick’s isolation and confusion. Eventually Nick gains a sense of belonging, even as he teaches his new friends a lesson about learning to celebrate our differences.

’Tis the Season
Compiled by the Tarradiddle Players

Don’t miss this joyful holiday play that whisks you through seasonal celebrations from around the world. Creep softly with the Tomten, who guards the farm in his native Sweden and outfoxes the Fox one cold, snowy night. Travel southward with the sun, who keeps her promise to the trees to return in this haunting Cherokee solstice story. And climb into the sleigh with Mrs. Claus, who thinks Christmas needs a little shaking up. There are plenty of opportunities to sing along, including everyone’s favorite version of “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” Make ’Tis the Season a part of your family’s favorite holiday traditions.

Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel
Book, Music and Lyrics by Eric Lane Barnes. Based on the book by Virginia Lee Burton. Cover from “Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel” by Virginia Lee Burton. © 1939 by Virginia Lee Burton, renewed 1967 by Virginia Lee Demetrios. Used by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Mike Mulligan and his beloved Steam Shovel, Mary Anne, have been together for many years. They’ve dug holes for famous canals, railroads, highways, airports and skyscrapers. But times have changed and newer, fancier shovels have become fashionable, leaving Mike and Mary Anne out of work and down to their last dime. Their final hope could be the little town of Poppesville, which needs a basement dug for its new City Hall. Mike and Mary Anne are determined to get the job, but first they have to outbid the Diesel Shovel, the Electric Shovel and even the state-of-the-art, cappuccino-making Nucleonic Diggatron! Virginia Lee Burton’s 1939 classic tale of hard work, determination and friendship comes to life in Eric Lane Barnes’ delightful musical, in which we learn that the newest, biggest or most expensive isn’t necessarily the best.

The Commedia King Arthur
By Lane Riosley

The Tarradiddle Players are back with another Commedia tale, and this time they dare to take on an English classic: the Tales of King Arthur. Our Players have never been so audacious (or quite so silly) as when trying to pull this one off. Bedraggled young squire Arthur forgets his master's sword and has to find a substitute, fast, or risk losing his job. What’s a young squire to do? Grab the nearest sword he can find, of course, never mind that it’s sticking out of a big rock. And the rest, as they say, is history. Or at least legend. This fast-moving production features a sprinkling of well known Arthurian stories, making it a perfect introduction to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Sir Lancelot and the Ogre, and King Arthur and the most adorable little dragon you have ever seen. What? No adorable dragons in the Tales of King Arthur? Are you sure about that? See for yourself!