“[The Stages Festival] provides wonderful opportunities to experience the magic of live theatre with everyone in your family—and your extended family of friends.” –NJ Theatre Alliance
Centenary Stage Company will join the New Jersey Theatre Alliance Stages Festival with a line-up of performances and workshops for young theatre-goers.
Day of Theatre
WHEN: March 3, 2012
WHERE: Centenary College, Hackettstown
The festival features two free workshops of Stage Combat and Creative Movement for the general public, as well as live performances from CSC’s new Young Audience Series (YAS), A Year With Frog and Toad (the musical) and If You Give a Pig a Pancake.
The Stage Combat Workshop
Led by Stephen Davis (professor of Theatre at Centenary College)
WHEN: 9:00 AM for ages eleven to fourteen
Reservations are required.
Creative Movement Workshop
Led by Y.A.S performers Nick Ardito and Brittany D’Allesio
WHEN: 12:00 PM for children ages six to ten
All workshops are free for children within the above stated age ranges. Due to the limited space, advance reservations are required in order to ensure a spot in the workshops.
As part of an initiation to introduce young people to the live theater experience, Centenary Stage Company will present A Year With Frog and Toad and If You Give a Pig a Pancake.
A Year with Frog and Toad will be performed at 11 AM and is recommended for ages three and up. Adapted as a musical from Arnold Lobel’s original children’s book, A Year With Frog and Toad centers around the friendship that forms between the two title characters, the four seasons they spend together and the life lessons they learn from other friends. (Left: Saquan Williams and Megan McGill)
If You Give a Pig a Pancake will be performed at 1 PM and is appropriate for children ages five to ten. If You Give a Pig a Pancake follows the enterprising journey of a young girl who accommodates the demands of a quirky piglet after eating pancakes. Their adventure is an escapade which becomes embroiled in taking a bubble bath, a little tap dance, taking a photo, mailing a letter, building a tree house and of course, going back for more pancakes.
WHERE: The Little Theatre on Jefferson Street, on the campus of Centenary College.
TICKETS: $8.00 for children and $10.00 for adults , however during the Stages Festival in March, children will be admitted for free with the purchase of an adult ticket .
CSC’s Day of Theatre offers a variety of individual artistic opportunities for young children to experience the theatrical world at affordable prices. “When folks ask us why we do what we do,” says Centenary Stage Company General Manager, Catherine Rust, “I like to quote the inimitable Rocco Landesman (President of the National Endowment for the Arts), who says, ‘The arts provide us with new ways of thinking, new ways to draw connections. They help maintain our competitive edge by engendering innovation and creativity,’ all qualities we urgently need in our rapidly changing society, ” Rust continues, “plus it’s a quantifiable fact that children who participate in the arts from an early age score higher on their SAT’s. What could be better than that?!”
The Stages Festival is an initiative of the New Jersey Theatre Alliance, the association of professional theatres throughout the state . The Festival brings together the NJ theater community to offer free performances, classes, back-stage tours and more, at professional theatres throughout the state in the month of March. The NJTA describes the overall experience of the Festival as “An event that provides wonderful opportunities to experience the magic of live theatre with everyone in your family—and your extended family of friends.” For information about state-wide activities during the festival, log on to www.njtheatrealliance.org or contact the NJTA at 973.731.6582 .
To register, or find out further information about Centenary Stage Company’s Day of Theatre workshops, please contact the YAS program director, Lea Antolini-Lid, at 908.852.1400 x2421 or via e-mail antolinil@centenarycollege.edu. For information about the CSC’s Young Audience Series performances, contact the CSC Box office at 908.979.0900. The Centenary Stage Company box office, located in the Lackland Center at 715 Grand Avenue, is open 1-5 PM Monday through Friday and two hours prior to each performance. Tickets may also be purchased online 24 hours a day at www.centenarystageco.org .
The Stages Festival is sponsored in part by the New Jersey Theatre Alliance, and member theatres. The 2012-13 season of performing arts events at the Centenary Stage Company is made possible (and affordable) through the generous support of the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, the NJ State Council on the Arts, the Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation, and Centenary Stage Company members and sponsors, including Premier Sponsors Fulton (formerly Skylands) Community Bank and Health Village Retirement Community, as well as Hackettstown Regional Medical Center and Mama’s Café and Baci.
