The Berenstain Bears on Stage

Stan and Jan Berenstain, Elliot Lawrence and Jamie Broza

The "world's foremost expert on the Berenstain Bears," guitar-strumming Cowboy Joe, is the show's stage director—introducing and commenting on the play's five episodes which are based on five classic Berenstain Bears books. The Berenstain Bears' New Baby: Small Bear is an only cub, and he is a little lonely. But, he is growing—he has outgrown his own little bed. And he is about to become a big brother! Papa Bear builds him a new, bigger bed as they talk about the coming birth of the new baby in the family. When Sister Bear arrives, Small Bear becomes Brother Bear and he finds, to his delight, that he won't be lonely anymore. Read the full synopsis and order a playbook.

 

Cinderella Eats Rice and Beans: a Salsa Fairy Tale

Karen Zacarias and Deborah Wicks La Puma

What will happen to Cinderella at the ball … game? That's the surprising climactic question in this contemporary Latin-American Cinderella musical, which delightfully turns the classic fairy tale on its head, telling the story from both Cinderella and the "stepsister's" perspective. Cinderella, a newcomer from Puerto Rico, comes to visit her "stepsister," Rosa, in the United States. The catch … Cinderella only speaks Spanish and Rosa only speaks English. Will these two girls be able to reach an understanding at the (basket) ball game? Read the full synopsis and order a playbook.

 

EAT (It's Not About Food)

Linda Daugherty

Candidly exploring causes and warning signs, the play takes a hard look at the influences of society and the media and tells individual stories of young people struggling with this epidemic and too often tragic problem. Beneath a neon sign reading "EAT" a young waitress enters and addresses the audience. She relates that, although 850-million people in the world are essentially starving, eating can be the most difficult thing in the world. Read the full synopsis and order a playbook.

 

 

The Elves and the Shoemaker

Adapted by Ric Averill from the Grimm Brothers fairy tale

In this fanciful and charming reframing of the traditional story of the shoemaking elves, the central character is Gunther, an old shoemaker. War rages across Europe and, somewhere in the midst of that conflict, Gunther has lost his only son. Gunther has also lost his will to work and instead waits for the daily casualty lists, sharing with his friend, the tailor, a growing dread. Read the full synopsis and order a playbook.

 

 

Family Matters

Sandra Fenichel Asher

What is a family? Playwright Sandra Fenichel Asher traveled the country running workshops in which teenagers and adults pondered that question and experimented with monologues and scenes based on significant events and interactions in their own families. The resulting script is a montage that gives every member of its large cast challenging opportunities for both solo and ensemble work. Family Matters presents the "full catastrophe" of family life, embracing its comic, dramatic, farcical and tragic realities. Read the full synopsis and order a playbook.

 

From Every Mountainside

Max Bush

Matt's school work and personal life are deteriorating. His friends Doug and Carol attempt to engage him in school activities and dating, but he doesn't respond well. Someone else notices Matt isolating himself: Susan, the new girl recently arrived from China. Susan takes a strong interest in Matt, watching him in school, studying his drawings and attempting to talk with him. Matt is stunned when Susan seems to know extremely personal things about him.How could she know these things? Why does she look more American than Chinese? What does she want with him? To answer his intensifying questions he meets her in the park one evening. Read the full synopsis and order a playbook.

 

Hamlet or Does Father Reeeeeeally Know Best

Adapted from Shakespeare by Nancy Linehan Charles

William Shakespeare was big on what can happen if you make the wrong move. And in his world that meant letting greed, jealousy, power and revenge get out of hand. He was always telling his audience, "Pick your friends well—watch whom you listen to." Well, Hamlet listens to a ghost and makes his choices. The ghost tells him to get even with his uncle who, by the way, deserves it, and everybody ends up very dead. Three wise, sassy, irreverent storytellers relay this story and, believe it or not, make you laugh at the craziness of the human condition and gasp at the universality of human behavior—whether in 15th-century Denmark or 21st-century_________(pick any city on the planet!). Read the full synopsis and order a playbook.

 

Intervention

Jill Jaysen and Matt Corriel

The last thing 17-year-old Amy wants to do on a Thursday afternoon is babysit Adam, a bratty 8-year-old boy (may also be a girl) who has forsaken his homework to torment his babysitter. When Amy gets a phone call from her friend, Rachel, Adam decides to eavesdrop on their conversation. As Amy's complaints to Rachel about school, friendships and boys steadily escalate in more and more dramatic, over-the-top language, so does Adam's anxiety, as he completely misinterprets Amy's rants, taking her exaggerations literally. Read the full synopsis and order a playbook.

 

A Kidsummer Night's Dream

Adapted from Shakespeare by Lynne Bartlett, Mark Leehy, Kevin O’Mara, David Billings and Rob Fairbairn

In the woods outside Athens, the fairy king and queen are squabbling over a changeling. Enter a pair of runaway lovers intent on eloping, a suitor in pursuit, and a group of workers rehearsing their humble play as a gift for the duke's wedding. Kidsummer is full of mischief and mayhem, misunderstandings and magic potion mix-ups, as kings and queens, humble workers, fairies, parents and kids all chase their dreams. Read the full synopsis and order a playbook.

 

Kindness

Dennis Foon

Kindness offers an unforgettable lesson in compassion and listening to one another. It sensitively captures the reality of children's feelings as it tells the story of three kids, Tessa, Damon and Keegan, as they navigate the small and large catastrophes in their lives. Mr. Foon spent a week interviewing kids in five Winnipeg schools about what mattered to them. He discovered the importance to children of giving and receiving, compassion, generosity and unconditional love, and these responses provided the foundation for Kindness. "We discussed their families and friends, their loves, their hates, their fears, the empty spaces in their hearts," said Mr. Foon. Read the full synopsis and order a playbook.

 

The Match Girl’s Gift: A Christmas Story

Laurie Brooks

On Christmas Eve 1898, in the heart of New York City, a gentle snowfall turns fashionable Washington Square into the very picture of a Currier and Ives holiday print, except … huddled by the steps of an elegant brownstone is a ragged little girl. When her Gran arrives bringing her a gift of "waking dreams" that help her imagine what might be, Lizzie, the match girl, goes into the grand house and offers a unique gift to the family inside. Encouraged by Pitch, the climbing boy, and Henry, the confused young gentleman who lives in the grand house, Lizzie recognizes her own beauty and realizes that without our dreams for the future, we are without hope. Read the full synopsis and order a playbook.

 

Mustardseed

Doug Cooney

Thrilled to be cast in a current production of William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Mustardseed buckles down to read the play and memorize her lines—all four of them! But she couldn't prepare for the backstage comedy that unfolds with the other three teenage girls cast as fairies. There's Moth, the seasoned ringleader; Cobweb, her wisecracking sidekick; and Peaseblossom, the boy-crazy pretty one. Ignoring Mustardseed's insistence that they should read the play, these fairies prefer to hang out in costume in the green room, playing cards, reading tabloids and gossiping about Bottom, Puck, Titania and other grown-up actors. Read the full synopsis and order a playbook.

 

River Rat and Cat

Y York

No one has ever understood the mysterious friendship of River Rat and Cat. From the day fastidious River Rat hauled a drowning sodden Cat from a sinking basket (thinking Cat was some unique collectible), all of the river creatures have been dismayed by the camaraderie of this unlikely duo. Cat proved to be imaginative, grand, fussy and thoroughly needy, while Rat is material, practical and thoroughly self-reliant. Lately, Rat has become frazzled by Cat's demands and has undertaken a program to make Cat more self-sufficient. Read the full synopsis and order a playbook.

 

The Secret School

Adapted by John Dilworth Newman from the novel by Avi

A new teacher, the enigmatic "Mrs. I," quickly sets a class of unruly students in order, claiming she began her teaching career as a 14-year-old girl teaching secretly in a one-room schoolhouse. When Mrs. I leaves the students alone, they find clues that suggest their teacher has been telling them the truth. The class enacts the story of the "secret school" to see if their teacher could have actually taught at such a young age, replacing the adult teacher who abandoned her class. In the "play within a play," young Ida Bidson teaches her seven pupils so they can advance and she can go on to high school. Read the full synopsis and order a playbook.

 

Smoldering Fires

Kermit Frazier

Dashaun Johnston and Corey Tyler are 12-year-old black boys who seem unlikely friends: Dashaun can barely make it through the school day without getting into trouble, while Corey excels. But the two have a special bond, and together they share a dream of cleaning up their sometimes violent, drug-infested urban neighborhood. At the top of the play, Corey has just presented an oral report on a book about young activists who fought during the civil rights movement. He believes that he and Dashaun can enable change, just as those kids had decades ago—that their dream, in fact, can become reality. Read the full synopsis and order a playbook.

 

The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip

Doug Cooney and David O. Adapted from the novel by George Saunders

Gappers are fuzzy orange creatures that wreak havoc on the seaside town of Frip. They latch onto the goats (whom they love) in the three-family village and jeopardize the community's goat-milk-based economy. Every day, the children of Frip brush gappers off their goats to toss them back into the ocean, and every day the gappers return. When the pesky critters target only one of the houses and the neighbors unexpectedly refuse to help, 10-year-old Capable must cope single-handedly with the gapper invasion—which she does with her own special brand of compassion and resourcefulness. After the tables turn on Capable's neighbors, will she rally to their assistance or revel in their comeuppance? Read the full synopsis and order a playbook.