Who is Pete the Cat?

Get to know the hippest cat in town, here are a few words from leading man, Zachary Hansbany, also known as Pete the Cat!

 Hi everyone! I’m Zachary Hasbany, playing Pete in Pete the Cat. I just got back from traveling the country with BACT’s national tour of the wonderful Goodnight Goodnight Construction Site. 

BACT has become quickly another home for me, so I’m excited to share Pete the Cat with everyone starting on June 16^th.  Pete is a musician cat in the 1960’s with many philosophies, especially that “life is a really really really big adventure.” Even when he gets caught by the cat-catcher, and blunders his way into a chaotic family environment, Pete keeps a positive attitude and adventures on. Getting to play Pete is such a delightful experience, because we can all learn from his perspective.

 On the roads that we take in life, it’s important to try hard with 100% effort, but when we get derailed, we can learn, adapt, and enjoy our new path. 

When we encounter a difficult path, we can remember another “’Pete Philosophy’ – life takes courage; be brave.” Keeping that in mind, I hope to see you all at this show, so we can enjoy this “groovalicious beautiful adventure” together!

Get Silly with Sugar: Willy Wonka Activity Guide

Put your leftover Halloween candy to use and get in the candy factory spirit with these Willy Wonka themed activities before or after you see The Willy Wonka Musical.

If you're like Augustus Gloop and can't get enough chocolate, try your hand at making your own chocolate goop.

If edible wallpaper is your treat of choice, try your hand at this edible wallpaper.  It's the perfect project for cookie cutters and free hand cutouts.  The best part is, if you don't like your first attempt, eat it and start over!

Get scientific with some holiday mints, and learn all about the density of different kinds of candy.  What floats, what dissolves, and what does candy start to look like as it digests?  So many questions, Wonka helps you find the answers. 

If your life is lacking candy, don't worry.  Grab some string, sugar, and water and grow your own rock candy.  Make it extra fancy with the food coloring and flavoring of your choice.  How many colors can you create? 

You many not have your own fizzy drink that makes you fly, but what if you could make M&M's float?   Try this fun experiment, and think light thoughts!

Have some of your own Wonka inspired projects?  Share with us on social media! 

Reopening the Construction Site

Here's everything you need to know about the remount of Goodnight Goodnight Construction Site!

Our new Downtown Berkeley home, The Osher Studio, is, shall we say, under construction.  And there's no better way to celebrate than with another run of the hit musical Goodnight Goodnight Construction Site.

Here's what's new:

If you liked Fly Guy, get jazzed because Ann Norland aka Fly Girl is joining the cast as Cement Mixer!

Jack Sale is returning to BACT to play Bulldozer.  Some may remember him as James in our production James and the Giant Peach that traveled to Shanghai a few years ago.

The rest of the cast returns, with their Heelys and hard hats to rock this musical from bath time to bed time. 

If you saw the show at Fairy Land, you missed out on a whole element--lighting!  Our designer Kevin August Landesman was nominated for a TBA Award for his outstanding design, so now you can see it in the Osher!

We're just starting to move into our new spaces, and explore expanding the stage beyond ways we used the space in shows like Fancy Nancy's Splendiferous Christmas, or Where the Mountain Meets the Moon. 

So, be sure to check it out, and help us think playfully in a whole new way!

Charlette's Blog: A Holiday Interview with Fancy Nancy

Charlette caught up with Fancy Nancy star, Allison Meneley, after a performance.  Fancy Nancy Splendiferous Christmas

Tickets and More Info: http://bactheatre.org/shows/FancyNancyChristmas

November 26-December 29 at The Osher Studio in downtown Berkeley.

I interviewed Allison Meneley who plays Nancy in Fancy Nancy's Splendiferous Christmas. Her mother inspired her to act. When she was about 8 years old her mother put her in a drama camp during summer. She liked it so much she caught the theater bug. I asked what she liked most about this play. She said she really liked her theater family. She met them a few months ago. Her theater family makes it fun to act and work for B.A.C.T. She didn't like the hair piece because it's alot of maintenance which is a fancy word for alot to take care of. It's almost like it has its own part period. She got her experience by going to the same drama camp every summer, and then she even started to teach it.  She started with singing and loved it then she did dancing and loved that too.  She went to college, and now she's getting her masters in theater education, so she can inspire kids like me.

 When she started working for B.A.C.T.  she helped out back staged for the play Edward Tulane. She was an understudy which is a fancy word for someone that knows your part and can fill in for you when your too sick or tired, for the original Fancy Nancy, Rhonda the 2 sport twins. She also did the Lady Bug Girl tour. She really likes all her parts for many difference reasons. Like the original Fancy Nancy because she made all her best friends in that show. She read the Fancy Nancy books and she was so happy to bring it to life on stage.  She did have to look in the book to see how Fancy Nancy poses and her clothes. 

She grew up watching plays and her first one was Phantom of the Opera when she was 9. One of her favorite plays in New York is Spring Awakening.  She saw it last year.  She also really enjoyed Finding Neverland. The advice she would give all young actors is to never lose sight of who you are and don't lose sight in the fun.  She is a great actor and I hope I see her again. I really enjoyed the show. 

Julietta Blogs: My Interview with Mitali Perkins

BACT Blogger Julietta had the opportunity to interview Mitali Perkins, author of the book Rickshaw Girl, at the show's San Francisco opening! She shares her experience below!

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The Rickshaw Girl play was super cool! It is about a girl named Naima. She wants to help her dad get some rest while still making enough money to pay back a loan for buying a new rickshaw, so she tries to drive the rickshaw. Instead, she crashed it. It will be very hard to fix such a beaten up Rickshaw, but if they don't fix it, her dad won't get any business with it.

 

A rickshaw built by actors with props!

 

I liked the book because it inspires girls to help them know that they can do anything. I liked how Naima's passion for art turned out to not be useless, but very important for her family. In the stories beginning, Naima really likes art, but she thinks because she cannot help make money, she is useless for the family. At the end, she realizes that it is a good thing that she was a girl, or else she would have not been given a chance to paint Rickshaws in exchange for the repairs of her dads Rickshaw.

To bring the play to life, they had to make a Rickshaw for the actors to use. At first, the Rickshaw is just a bunch of pieces, but when actors held up the pieces while moving it, you could see the rickshaw, and I thought that was a great idea. There was even live music for the play!

After the play, I got to meet the author of Rickshaw Girl, Mitali Perkins, to interview her. Her favorite part to write in Rickshaw Girl was when Naima's dad says "its a good thing you turned out to be a girl." She liked that part because she had two older sisters and everyone cried because she wasn't a boy and now her parents say that to her. She was inspired to write the book because of the Rickshaws she saw and she also learned how it was hard for girls to make money in Bangladesh. She thought it would be a great idea to show in her book how it is changing now. Besides Rickshaw Girl, Mitali wrote 9 other books! She is also working on a novel and a picture book. Mitali is local to Bay Area in Orinda. Rickshaw Girl is not yet popular in Bangladesh yet. The book is not translated yet, either. Mitali started writing books because she loved reading and she wanted to write books for other people to enjoy just like she enjoyed reading. She set the story in Bangladesh because that was where her parents were born. She likes art a lot. Her favorite tool to draw with is colored pencils. She especially likes to draw alpanas because they are really simple and easy. It was great getting to meet Mitali and it was really great getting to interview her.

Author Mitali Perkins (L) with BACT Blogger Julietta (R)

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Rickshaw Girl continues for one more weekend at the Children's Creativity Museum Theater before heading to the Osher Studio in Berkeley. Purchase your tickets today!