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Halloween Stock-Up Shopping

10/25/2013

When I was a Cub Scout leader, I was always delighted to find that BSA planned the most ambitious, theatrical Pack Meetings to coincide with the time of year when it was easier to find costumes and props readily available. We had all kinds of great themed Pack meetings in October such as the Cub Scout Circus, or Gold Mining in the Yukon, or Medieval Times Jousting Contests or Adventures in Outer Space. Convenience is not lost on the master planners of Cub Scouting. They've been around a long time and have learned a few things.

Yesterday I spent the day trying to sew costumes for my son and his wife to be Nacho Libre (as the Monk) and Sister Encarnacion. They brought me the fabric - the right colors and inexpensive, but also a pain to sew with. (I really hate cutting and sewing satin. It is so slick and it unravels so easily. What a mess!) The problem was that I was to create them just using a picture as my guide with no pattern to follow and no live bodies to fit them to. I resorted to using my other (taller and skinnier) son and a random football friend he had over for the models. As they were soon going off to play a Varsity Football game, they really did not appreciate modeling for me, especially for the nun costume. Anyway, the mission was accomplished, but I have yet to see the final results on the real models. Hope they fit!

The point is that the fabric and accessories were easy to come by and affordable. If I was wise, I would go out and scour the Halloween shops for my up-coming show that won't be mounted until March. So what if I do not know the exact sizes or shapes of the cast members? Or even how many? Now is the time to find those hard to find props and fabrics for cheap. What am I sitting around for? At least I could see if any of the props I will need are out there for cheap. I can always write in a new character if I find something I absolutely can't resist!

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Dick Whittington and His Cat

10/14/2013

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The Tale of "Dick Whittington and His Cat" is a very old story that was actually based on a real person who lived in Elizabethan England long ago. This young orphan boy rose to become the Lord Mayor of London, but not until he came into a good fortune. In the story that became a folktale, this good fortune was all due to his clever cat. But in real life, there is no evidence that young Dick ever even had a cat.

The folktale was first performed as a PANTOMIME. The characters were richly costumed and acted without a set script. Music was played in true Renaissance fashion to accompany the exaggerated gestures and broad physical comedy of the stock characters. The audience was expected to understand the motivation and attitudes of the well-known characters such as the buffoon or fool or clown, the vice or devil, the Do-Well, or Do-Better, or Do-Best characters, the Everyman, and Death. In the story, the Protagonist (Dick) has interactions and experiences with forms of each of these stock characters.
Later, in the early 19th Century, the story of "Dick Whittington and His Cat" was written into an illustrated storybook for children. By then the characters were refined to reflect a simple storyline about a boy who had the good sense to buy a cat to get rid of the mice problems he encountered along his way. This clever cat ultimately brought Dick good fortune when it rid the king of a faraway land of his mice problem.

When deciding how to write songs to fit this story, I decided that the music really fit in the Renaissance style period. I also wanted to introduce the characters as they would have been introduced in a Pantomime, with broad stokes using authentic Renaissance musical devices and instrument sounds. And since the story is to be performed by children, I decided to include plenty of little mice. They even get their own little scurry song -- in a happy mood before they encounter the cat and in an agitated mood as they are running from the cat. Then, the refrain from the first song is reprised for the finale.

"Dick Whittington and His Cat" is a wonderful story that has fun theatrical elements and interesting historical context.

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The Songs and Script are now available for this little 10-15 Classroom Musical.

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The Sky Is Falling! The Sky Is Falling!

10/3/2013

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The past several weeks have been quite an adventure for me. I have been studying and researching five different stories (for a English as a foreign language teaching project) in order to write songs about them. The first two songs came quite easily for the story of "Henny Penny and Chicken Licken." What I learned about this story was quite compelling. I learned that this was a very old story with similar origins from many cultures. It was finally written down in storybook form in the early 19th century in England. I learned that the rhyming names -- Henny Penny, Turkey Lurkey, Cocky Locky, and others -- were used in order to help beginner readers enjoy the patterns of the English language.

I also learned that during WWII, this story was used to illustrate the situation of fear-mongering going on between the Nazis and the Allies. The name "Chicken Licken" became an idiom to describe those who foolishly followed their irrational fears. The phrase "The sky is falling" became an idiom describing those irrational fears. And, of course, "Foxy Loxy" came to represent those fear-mongers who prey on the weak and gullible.

Art by Gabriel Evans

So, obviously, the first song, "The Sky Is Falling," needed to introduce what happens in the story. Chicken Licken, the very small and very naive young chick, goes out walking one Autumn day, when suddenly a little acorn falls onto her head. She does not know what to think, so she runs to tell her mother that the sky is falling and a part of it has fallen on her head. She gets Henny Penny all worked up and they decide to go tell the king together. On their way, they find other gullible fowl who also go along with them. Down the road, they meet a clever fox who says that he will gladly show them the way to find the king. Instead, he leads them into his den and gobbles them up. This is actually a very disturbing end of the story for the young readers. I needed to make the music upbeat and fun despite the fact of the silly birds untimely demise.

The second song, "The Clever Plan," needed to sum up the story and I decided that it also needed to explain a clear moral. So, in a minor mode with sneaky sounding accompaniment, I retold how the fox had a clever plan to lure the fowl to his den. "He took advantage of a foolish fear and got himself a meal." Then, "The moral of this tale is clear: Don't be persuaded by a foolish fear. Just get the facts before you act, or you will be the fool!"

Eventually, I would like to create a full scale Children's Musical developing this tale. I think this idea of being courageous when confronting your fears is an important part of growing up. We certainly have many factors in our world today that may make us think that the sky is falling down around us. Perhaps we all need to be reminded not to be persuaded by a foolish fear!

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Now available: "The Tale of Chicken Licken" - 30 minute children's musical for ages 5-12

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Halloween Stock-Up Shopping

Dick Whittington and His Cat

The Sky Is Falling! The Sky Is Falling!

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