We've been hard at work creating our brand new show for babies aged 6-18 months. The set is looking beautiful and the music is sounding amazing - so we can't wait to share it with you. Next week we travel to our friends at artsdepot to put the finishing touches and have our very first preview.
Visit the 'shows' section of the website for when and where you can join us. We'll be adding more dates over the coming weeks.
Let's get digging!
This year we’ve created 2 Big ENORMOUS education packs to enable teachers to use the story as a context for different areas of learning.
The first pack is designed to extend the children’s live theatre experience into subject areas across the curriculum including Maths, Geography, Science, History, PSHE and Art & Design.
Our second education pack is specifically designed for younger children and meets the Areas of Learning across the Early Years Foundation Stages.
You can find both available to download in .pdf format in Teacher Resources here.
Have fun!
Pied Piper are delighted to be awarded Arts Council funding for Star in the Jar. Our creative team are already working on ideas! We are very grateful to the Arts Council for their continued support of our work.
Star in the Jar will tour from November 2019 to February 2020.
From Star in the Jar by Sam Hay. Illustrations copyright © 2018 Sarah Massini. Published by Egmont UK Ltd and used with permission.
Following the success of Pied Piper Theatre’s Burglar Bill last year, this new two hander for very young children follows a similar format. There is little dialogue in Hare and Tortoise, lots of physicality and gentle joking, a neat narrative shape and some catchy songs. And it all sits very happily in the Yvonne Arnaud’s child-friendly studio space.
Catherine Chapman’s designs – flowers, snow, carrots, russet leaves, and more – underpin the seasonal progression, once Tortoise has emerged from hibernation and we await the famous race.
Ebony Feare is a deliciously charismatic tortoise, languorous with an impressive range of reptilian faces and stances and a resonant singing voice. Stefan Stuart’s ever impatient hare, more boyish than leporine, makes for an appropriately lively contrast despite his weaker singing voice.
Tuneful songs and accompanying music range from folk to Mozart, with lots of violin and piano in the backing; the show makes entertaining live use of Feare’s steel pan skills too.
Like most of Tina Williams’ work for the company she founded 30 years ago, Hare and Tortoise is a show full of warmth and charm, which at the opening performance had the school party of five and six year olds, which constituted most of the audience, engaged, gasping and laughing.
