BaileyKidsMusicals.com
Kid Tested and Parent Approved
  • Home
  • Betsy's Blog on Children's Theater |
  • Children's Musicals
  • Mini Classroom Musicals
  • Songs from Musicals
  • Featured Songs from Shows
  • Tips for Presenting Children's Musicals
  • Putting on a Show
  • Folktales and Superheroes
  • What People Are Saying...
  • Video from Musicals
    • Never Cry Wolf 2007 Video
    • A Successor to the Throne Provost 2013 Video
    • Parizade's Quest 2015 Video
    • Momotaro Summer Camp Video 2015
  • Photos from Productions
    • Photos from A Successor to the Throne 2006
    • Photos from Successor to the Throne 2013
    • Photos from Never Cry Wolf 2007
    • Photos of Never Cry Wolf 2014
    • Photos of Never Cry Wolf 2019 Summer Camp
    • Photos from Stone Soup 2012
    • Photos from Chicken Licken Summer 2014
    • Photos from Parizade's Quest 2015
    • Photos from The Ants and the Grasshopper 2014
    • Photos The Adventures of Dick Whittington 2016
    • Photos from Momotaro 2017
  • About Me
  • Contact Info
  • Never Cry Wolf Hair Style Ideas and Tutorials
  • Children's Picture Books
  • Christmas Nativity Script (short)

Parizade's Quest - Ready for Digital Download at SMP Press!

10/26/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture
Finally the items from Parizade's Quest are ready. The Piano/Vocal Score, the Director's Script and Production Kit are uploaded now and available at SMP Press!

This was one of my favorite shows to write.  It all began with a suggestion by my good friend Kerynne Vance.  She told me about how she had thought that this story was an excellent choice for Children's Theater because it had so many good roles for girls.  And indeed it does.  The storyteller Jamileh, the Beautiful Weeping Queen Kazhira, the two scheming 
sisters Beheshteh and Chaman Banoo, Parizade the lost Princess, and Shazelle the Speaking Bird.  That adds up to six important roles - not counting the Court dancers, gypsies, and servants that are also female roles.  

Now don't get me wrong, there are plenty of good roles for boys, too:  The Sultan Kashroo Shah, the Master storyteller Ghalandar, Old Torab, the two lost Princes Bahman and Perviz,  the Gypsy musicians Barim and Najid, and Captain Rashid and the Royal Guards
Picture

​This story is so colorful and chocked full of magic and mystery.  With a healthy costume and scenery budget, this play can be mounted in a most memorable way.  The budget for our first production was not nearly enough to do everything I wanted to do.  With a healthy budget, the costumes could be elegantly bejeweled and oh so dazzling!  With access to a better stage, the sets could be so imaginative and spectacular.  There could also be some magical effects with lighting and puffs of smoke.

​ Oh well, maybe those special things will happen in a later production...


​

0 Comments

Hard to Pick a Favorite

10/19/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture
Occasionally I am asked which of my Musicals is my favorite.  Would it be the one I am currently working on, or the first one, or one that is associated with a special memory...

​           Well, this is a tough one.
My favorite is probably not the first one I wrote
.  "Stone Soup" has evolved so much over the years and has had a lot of input from multiple actor's and director's interpretations. I like "Stone Soup," and have enjoyed the various iterations of its development.  It was the first show that featured my two youngest children when they were very young -- 5 and 6 years old.  There will always be a fondness in my heart for "Stone Soup."

         Over the years I have been fortunate to direct everyone of my sixteen Children's Musicals.  In fact, none of them were actually written in a vacuum.  All of them had a reason to be written and performed.  Even the four classroom mini-musicals.  They started out as a project for a company that provides reading materials to classrooms in Asia that teach English as a foreign language.  They chose famous English language stories as a basis for teaching culture and heritage, as well as entertainment through reading.  This company wanted songs to go along with their simplified reader's theater scripts.  I was given permission to use the songs for my own purposes, as well.  The five stories I wrote songs for were "Chicken Licken," "The Country Mouse and the City Mouse," "Dick Whittington and His Cat," "The Musicians of Bremen," and "Three Billy Goats Gruff." 

             The great thing about owning the rights to your own work is that you are not bound by any restrictions.  Nearly every time I have personally directed one of these mini plays, I have had reason to modify the script and add new songs.  If I had a particularly talented cast, I could add more colorful characters and give them more interesting songs to sing.  That's how "The Tale of Chicken Licken" and "The Adventures of Dick Whittington" became full-length musicals. I will always love "Whittington."  I feel like I wrote some of my best songs for some of my best characters in that one.  I always knew that "Dick Whittington" had potential to become a feature length show because of its beginning as an Old English Pantomime.  But I was surprised by "The Tale of Chicken Licken."  I will have to say, that of all the shows I have done with and for 2nd graders, this has been received the best. The school kids loved it!  I guess it was comic enough and very easy to understand.  (I really think they loved the costumes the most.)

           Well, I have currently been working again on one of the first shows I ever wrote.  It started as a Summer Camp production for 8 young children.  The first iteration of
"The Boy Who Cried Wolf" was written for 5-7 year-olds.  It had to be very simple. I was so surprised by reactions of that first audience.  When the little sheep came on and danced their little dance and shook their little tails, the people were practically "rolling in the aisles" delighted because of the "cute" factor.  But I felt sorry for the contrary boy.  I felt that he was just misunderstood and should have had a song that told his side of the story.  So a few years later, I revisited this show and expanded it to full length and gave the contrary boy his own song, "A View from the Highest Mountain."  Of all the songs I have written for Children's Musicals, I think I am most pleased with this one.  Who out there has never felt misunderstood or has yearned for a higher perspective? (Writing a pure "stand alone" song within the context of a musical is very difficult.)

Picture
 "Never Cry Wolf" has so many great memories associated with it.  It has been my most performed Musical, with many theater groups using it for a main stage production.  It works well for a very large cast with a wide age span, but equally as well for a smaller more homogenous aged group. I have particularly fond memories of when our church group produced it as a two week Summer Camp in 2007.  We had a cast of 75 children ranging in age for 2 1/2 to 15. (We even had about an equal ratio of boys to girls -- very unusual in children's theater!)  The mothers came out in force to help out on everything from managing the kids to providing cultural enrichment activities such as weaving, spinning wool, eating Greek foods, and building mosaics.  Artists appeared out of nowhere to paint the scenery.  Women set up shop during rehearsals with their sewing machines to create the costumes.  So many women who had been dancers in their early life jumped right in and created and taught the choreography to the kids.  The dads even volunteered to build a stage.  In the end, the stage would have been too dangerous for our large cast of "little's" to dance on, so we used it to raise the audience providing "stadium" seating and the kids performed on the floor of the gym.  We had such a great time during that production.  I still hear from families who remember that show and thank me for providing such a great opportunity for their children.

          So, if pressed, I would probably have to say that
 "Never Cry Wolf" is my all-time favorite of my shows. Don't get me wrong, I love each of these stories as if they were my own children.  You simply don't pick favorites when you had to work so hard to bring them to life.  But "Never Cry Wolf" holds the most great memories for me, probably because I have lived with it the longest.

0 Comments

    Author

    My name is Betsy Bailey.  I have sung, written and taught music all of my life.  I enjoy writing and directing Children's Theater shows.  This blog will be directed to topics on creating the magic of Children's Theater.  I would love to hear your comments!

    Archives

    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    July 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    January 2017
    October 2016
    September 2016
    July 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013

    Categories

    All
    Acting Games
    Aesop Fables
    Benefits Of Children's Theater
    Broadway And Movie Songs
    Character Values
    Chicken Licken
    Children's Chorus
    Children's Theater
    Choreography
    Christmas Nativity Pageant
    Common Core Objectives
    Costuming
    Dick Whittington And His Cat
    Drama Club
    Elementary School Music
    Elementary School Stages
    Flexible Casting
    Folk Songs
    Funny Stories
    Japanese Folktale
    Lessons Plans
    Matching Pitches
    Mini Musicals
    Mini-Musicals
    Momotaro
    Old English Pantomime
    Parizade's Quest
    Performance
    Resourcefulness
    Sets And Props
    Songwriting
    Stone Soup
    Storybooks
    Summer Theater Camp
    Tales Of The Arabian Nights
    Teaching Aids
    Teaching Singing
    The Boy Who Cried Wolf
    The Country Mouse And The City Mouse
    The Empty Pot
    The Musicians Of Bremen
    Writing And Directing Children's Musicals

    RSS Feed

Copyright: Bailey Kids Musicals, 2015