Betsy's Blog on Children's Theater | BaileyKidsMusicals.com - BaileyKidsMusicals.com

Time Forges Onward

4/2/2021

It really is a small world. The other day, I learned that my neighbor's daughter is engaged to a young man with an unusual name. That name rang a bell for me. As if being roused from a deep sleep, the memories of a different time, a different place, and a different cast of characters came flooding back. I remembered that young man from when he was about age 10. He was in one of my Children's Theater productions back when we lived in Maryland.

Fourteen years ago now, a group of like-minded parents and I got together and helped our children put on a show. So many families wanted to be involved! All totaled, there were 75 children between the ages of 2 1/2 to 15. Fortunately, nearly all the parents, and even some interested bystanders, chipped in to lend a hand.

Never Cry Wolf is probably my most popular show. And it is easy to see why. It has a very FLEXIBLE CAST that can be expanded or diminished as needed. It has parts that can accommodate very young children without lowering the expectations of the young teenagers.

All of the cast members are busy throughout the entire 60 minute production. They are shown doing the daily WORK of people in ancient Greece. The activities of the Farmers, Shepherds, Soldiers, Merchants, Artisans, Servants, Weavers, Politicians, Sheep, the Family and even the Muses all show this slice of daily life from so long ago. The songs and dances are very fun, too.

The children in these pictures are no longer little kids. Many have grown up, gone to college, started their careers, served missions, travelled the world, gotten married, and some even have their own children now. But I like to remember who they were then. Too bad we can't stop the March of Time!

The Song Is Ended, But the Melody Lingers on

6/26/2019

How does that Irving Berlin/Ira Gershwin ballad go? "The song is ended, but the melody lingers on..."

Sometimes the success of a show is measured by how long the melodies linger on. Many of my Camp Participant's parents approach me even now saying that they still hear their kids singing the tunes from the show around the house. (It has been several weeks now since our performance.) That is such a compliment. Of course, I hope that my songs and their messages linger in the minds of the children. That is the entire point of doing the show. I hope that they will remember to Be Sincere and that Everybody Works AND that these things are GOOD!

But I am floored that the most memorable song from Never Cry Wolf this summer has been the Little Lamb's dance. My daughter's little 22 month old daughter Avery goes around singing "Baa, Baa, Baa" and doing the little dance moves almost nonstop daily. Notice the very nice first position turnout in the feet, the preparatory plie', and the lovely arm position on the turn. This girl is destined to be a ballerina! She will surely become a triple threat -- she can sing (of course, right now she specializes in one word songs as long as that word is "Baa"); she certainly can dance; and here in the household we have witnessed her tendencies towards being a drama queen! To me, that definitely spells T-R-I-P-L-E T-H-R-E-A-T!

When I wrote the first iteration of this show about 20 years ago now, I just needed a little song simple enough for three five-year-old girls to perform. They had had no previous performing experience and were scared of their own shadows. Until the moment of the performance, I could not be certain these three little girls would do anything that they had been taught. But, they surprised us all and had the the audience giggling so much they nearly fell off their chairs. There simply is no arguing with CUTE FACTOR.

So, while I would prefer that "Set for Posterity" or "A View from the Highest Mountain" or "Tapestry of Life" would be the hit songs from the show, I am still pleased that "Baa Baa Baa" enjoys such longevity. The Camp might have ended, but the Song lingers on...

So Proud of My Young Performers

6/13/2019

Lyla's beautiful hairdo

The Summer Theater Camp Production of "Never Cry Wolf" was performed very well by our intrepid young cast members! We had an audience of near 200 spectators including family, friends, and interested neighbors. And, the only noise competition was the drone of EFY kids playing games at the field a few blocks away. (NO power tools in the neighbors yards, thankfully!) The sound system wasn't great, but helped some. The high clouds gave some relief to the audience. The performances were solid and the kids looked great in their costumes and fancy hairstyles. They all looked sharp!

Early morning light on set.

Comments from audience:
"I loved how you took this very short story and gave it so much body! Songs, dances, a great message! The show was so enjoyable! I can even sing the songs....Everybody works, everybody's got a job to do."

"My favorite number was the "Military March." Loved watching the boys march in formation with their cool shields."

"You must have ruled over the performers with an iron hand! They looked so professional!"

Deep Dark Woods

"I don't know what I was expecting, but I was delightfully surprised by what I saw! This was so entertaining and fun. We usually don't expect to be entertained by going to see the grandkids' productions. But this was really great!"

"The Little Lambs stole the show! They were adorable! My little 12 month old daughter thought she was one of the Lambs. They were singing a word she could say! Baa Baa Baa!"

"The songs were great! So fun to have so many styles of music represented in one show! Loved the variety --- especially the "Set It for Posterity" number. Great fun seeing the kids erupt into 1960's dances."

"That was a great show Betsy! Thanks for sharing your talents with us! I'm so glad we get to be involved with such a great activity every year."

"Thank you from our entire family for another wonderful drama camp. My kids came home glowing every day from the confidence you helped them find."

"This is the 6th show my kids have been in. And it is the favorite!"

Ever Wonder Why You Do the Things You Do?

6/6/2019

The past two weeks have been a blur of activity at our Summer Theater Camp. The first four days were spent getting to know and teach the older children (9-13). Then on Saturday and Monday we added the younger children (5-8 year olds). The younger children come this week to try to learn their parts without the older kids. This is not really the optimum use of time seeing that these groups often interact with each other on stage, but it was the only solution we could come up with given all of the families' busy schedules. Thank goodness some of the older boys (who play lead characters) are willing to come extra days to work with the younger kids. We are missing the older girls though. They are off to girl's camp for four days this week.

Each day I have tried to plan a schedule to check off the list of things to accomplish. But, I am afraid that we have not actually kept to the schedule. The children are young and sometimes it takes longer than expected for them to learn the things they need to. But thankfully, I have some great helpers to teach the music and dances and help with acting and shepherding our little "Lambs." Also, some interested parents have just appeared willing to be volunteer helpers. Today my sister is coming to do costume fittings with the younger kids. Last night, my daughter helped me paint some set pieces. Yet, I still have a lot to do!

"Why do I do this?" I wonder.

   So many theater groups do the same popular shows over and over such as Disney's "Little Mermaid Jr." or "Aladdin Jr." or "Seussical the Musical Jr." Those shows are great for what they are and the music is wonderful, of course. And it is true that people like what they know. The popular title draws the crowd. But are these shows always the best choice for young children?

     I prefer mounting shows for the youngest children that help teach good character traits and moral values (and NEVER have LOVE scenes). I also prefer doing shows where each participant is busy for the whole production. Many of the popular shows feature just a few actors and everybody else gets lost in the few crowd scenes.

   Last night I overheard my 7-year-old grandson explain to the the neighbor boy about our play. He was surprised that the little boy didn't know about Aesop or his fables, or what the word "contrary" meant. The kids were playing in the backyard and Ethan didn't know his mother and I were overhearing their conversation as we were painting. Ethan told his friend about the contrary Boy Who Cried Wolf and how he lied so much that the people wouldn't believe him anymore. "You really shouldn't lie to people." He also explained that he got to be the Wolf and carry off his sister as the last little Sheep. He even had his sister Iris demonstrate her little Lamb dance. She sang as she danced, and Ethan came up and carried her off just as they are to perform it in the show.

   Katelyn and I looked at each other. "That's why you keep doing this," she said. Yes, indeed.

Leaving With the Message Stuck in Your Brain

5/7/2019

Fifty kids have signed up for Summer Theater Camp. My enrollment cap was 45, but in order to get enough older kids, I made allowances to take some of their younger siblings as well. It will all work out.

Never Cry Wolf is a show that I have done many times with many more cast members than 50. And I already have enough costumes and props. The only worry is that I hope they will all fit on my limited stage. Fortunately, until the Bows they do not all need to be on the stage at the same time.

The two main ideas of this show are the Character Values of SINCERITY and WORK. Everyone knows the Aesop Fable "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" and how the contrary boy finds out that "no one will believe you unless you always tell the truth." That is the meaning of Sincerity.

But as I was thinking how to expand the telling of this tale, I wondered just how the contrary boy got the job of tending the sheep. Then I wondered about the other kinds of jobs and work people did in Ancient Greece. Seemed entirely reasonable to fill out the story to show the many types of WORK people did back then, because, of course, EVERYBODY WORKS!

In my research, I found that men were fathers, and farmers, and artisans, and politicians and many other occupations. And women did many kinds of work, too. They were mothers, and cooks, and housewives, but many learned to SPIN WOOL INTO CLOTH, they also embroidered it and sold their wares in the market place. That was a perfect tie in to the boy who looked after the sheep.

Of course, no children's musical Fable would be complete without message songs. These songs are "Everybody Works" and "Being Sincere." Those two songs are reprised during the Bows with everyone on the stage. Sometimes we even encourage the audience to sing along. It's important to go home with the most important messages stuck in your brain!

Summer Theater Camp

3/21/2019

Last year, I had to cancel my usual backyard Summer Theater Camp because my husband was so sick. After his passing last week, I decided that he would want me to continue to do summer camps. After all, he built me a beautiful shed to house all of my props and scenery and helped me create all sorts of set pieces for the shows. He would want me to get busy doing the things I love. Besides, our grandchildren who have been living with us just may want to be in the show.

The Musical I intend to do is "Never Cry Wolf" a retelling of the Aesop fable "The Boy Who Cried Wolf." This show can accommodate many children of differing heights to depict various populations, but my patio "stage" is limited. I know 30-35 children fill the space to capacity, and having more can get crowded. But then again, with this show, not everyone needs to be on the stage at the same time, so I might be able to expand the cast to 40-45. I have done this show with 40 kids and 50 kids and even 75 kids. But those times, I had more space and more helpers.

This play has many featured roles: the Teachers/Muses, the Old Woman, the Villagers, the Women, Musicians/Dancers, the Politicians, the Father and Mother and siblings of the Contrary Boy, and Aesop.

The younger children will play School Children, Servants, Military Academy Boys, the little Sheep and the Wolf. And I simply must have a flamboyant actor to play "Altair the Magnificent."

Whenever I choose a show, I need to have an idea of just who might sign up to be in the cast. Sure, I know that I'll get a bunch of little 5-7 year olds, and I have parts for them, but they can't carry a show. Even the 8-9 year olds are not mature enough to carry an entire show like this. I need to plan our camp schedule around the older kids who I know have the talent and capacity to learn the lines, songs and dances quickly and CAN carry the show. So, I end up doing a little investigating. I find out when school ends, when Scout trips are scheduled, and who might be on the swim teams, etc. Not that I will pre-cast the lead parts before I see the children, but it is good to have choices. I will be accepting children ages 5 - 14 years old.

I am still working out the exact dates. The Summer Theater Camp will likely be May 27th - June 7th (9am - Noon Mon-Fri) with a performance on Saturday June 8th at 10:00 am.

I love this show because the moral values taught are so important -- Sincerity and Work.

Contact me if you live in the Provo Utah area and have kids that would be interested.

FORGOT about Memorial Day on May 27th. So we will probably have to work around that day. Possibly add an extra 1/2 hour onto our days or add a Saturday. I will post soon what we decide.

Another Successful NCW Show

4/29/2017

So proud of my niece Rachel and her cast! They all worked so hard and successfully performed four shows in the last three days! The audiences were blown away by how well the kids sang and delivered their lines and how good they looked in their ancient Greek costumes. That school had never had a School Musical before (at least, not in recent memory). Maybe this will set a precedent and they will demand more School Musicals in the future!

Hard to Pick a Favorite

10/19/2016

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.)

"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 parents 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.

In an Ancient Land...

5/26/2015

Long, long ago in an ancient land where the mountains meet the sea...

Click here to view the entire video of "Never Cry Wolf!" 2007

The story of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" is ancient indeed. It was told by the Greek storyteller and philosopher Aesop who lived in the 6th century BC. By his time, the Greek culture already had an even more ancient past. To young children, people who are just a generation away from them in age are considered ancient.

When I directed my first retelling of this story with a very young cast of 5-7 year olds, getting them to understand any amount of culture and history was a bit of a challenge. So we focused on aspects of the story they could understand more readily -- having parents who love their children and want them to become the best they can be, doing WORK and the different types of jobs people have, and the bad feelings you get when you do not tell the truth.

Some concepts were harder to explain, such as SINCERITY and RESPONSIBILITY. Very young children live only in the present and have a hard time understanding complex emotions and situations. Hopefully through the story they began to get an idea of how our actions and what we say can affect how we and others feel and what happens because of us.

The second retelling of this story became a more expanded version that I renamed "Never Cry Wolf." The idea was to create a show that could be learned in a two week Summer Intensive Theater Camp. The families at Church were all onboard to help and provide this opportunity for of our children. We depended on everybody to get involved in some way. I was overwhelmed by the talent that came out of the woodwork to volunteer time and effort.

We had moms who could sew and paint and dance and sing to teach the children. Some others volunteered to be Group Leaders who followed the 8-10 children in their age-range group through their day to keep them organized and cared for. They even helped them sponge paint their own T-shirt costumes and design their shields. We had a few mothers who organized Ancient Greek "cultural experiences" with spinning wool, weaving, building mosaics and making/tasting hummus. We even had Nursery and Recess helpers.

Some of the moms and dads helped build the stage, sets, and hang lighting, and some gave technical support and video taped the shows and took pictures. We had 75 kids ages 2-14 in the camp and almost as many parent helpers involved with the show. Believe me, this story took on new meaning for the parents -- they got it. This show was indeed about the values of SINCERITY and hard WORK! I only hope the children got it, as well!

The last few weeks have taken me through many memories of writing and directing shows...but mostly of remembering the children. As I edited the videos of past shows, I wondered about those children. Some, I know, have grown up, gone to college, chosen careers and even gotten married. Time flies by and in no time, WE, the former teachers, become ancient history. Fortunately, there are always younger kids waiting to come up the ranks.

Perhaps that is why I enjoy writing and directing Children's Theater. I so love seeing things through their new eyes.

Kudos to the Kids!

10/12/2014

Last night I got to attend the performance of one of my shows performed by Upstage Theater for Youth, a Children's Theater Company based in Sandy, Utah. They produced "Never Cry Wolf" with a group of 30 talented kids ranging in age from 5-15. I was impressed by their infectious enthusiasm, awesome line delivery, and genuine love of the songs. It made me very happy! This image was on their cast Tee-shirts. Each actor drew a self portrait. Such a cute idea!

It is always a revelation to see someone else's ideas imprinted onto your work. The results are sometimes not as you envisioned, but somehow work just as well. For example, their stage was quite small. So they opted to have a very simple set with practically no scenery. They just used white columns set against the black drapes to suggest ancient Greece. The actors brought on a few accent props and wore costumes suggesting the time period. Other than that, the show was very simply staged. In fact, the accompanist sat in full view of the audience at her piano (appropriately costumed, of course) during the entire play. It seemed quite natural and not a distraction at all. Besides, she played beautifully.

Because the show was written for a very large cast (45+), many of the actors had to do double duty and play several roles. With so few boys in the cast, some of the male roles went to female actresses. It made a couple of scenes and jokes a little awkward, but the girls persevered and gave a good accounting of themselves. That's the way it sometimes is in Children's Theater. All in all, the show went very well and the audience was very receptive. And, true to form, the little lambs stole the show!

My favorite part was mingling with the audience and the actors. Over and over they thanked me for creating such a wonderful show. They loved the music. In fact, even the audience members, many of them parents, confided to me that they had had the songs going round and round in their heads for weeks. They told me that they enjoyed the powerful messages of Sincerity and Work that were taught in the play. One parent hoped that the wayward son that he brought to watch the show that evening would get the message!

Well, I certainly hope so, too. After all, "Being sincere is a treasure."

So, once again, big KUDOS to the KIDS of Upstage Theater for Youth.
Well done!