Congrats to our TBA Awards Finalists for Crayons!

The Day the Crayons Quit, the Musical was honored in a very special way last week when Theatre Bay Area announced three TBA Awards Finalists from the show!

Composer & playwright Austin Zumbro is a Finalist for Outstanding World Premiere Musical.
 

Actor Brett Jones is a Finalist for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Principal Roles in a Musical.

And Choreographer Khalia Davis is a Finalist for Outstanding Choreography.

We had a chance to check in with Ms. Davis on her reaction to being a TBA Awards Finalist!

"When I found out that I was nominated for my choreography for Crayons, I was in disbelief. First of all, this was my first time creating choreography for adults for a main stage production. I had only ever worked with children. I couldn't believe that my novice work was being recognized in such high esteem among the other nominees. Secondly, this is a children's show! I couldn't believe that we were being given the same respect and special nods that the adult professional shows were also receiving. It made me realize that this theater community honors the work and doesn't care in what form it comes. I feel so lucky that my first main stage choreography position was with a group of individuals whom I admire and whom I consider family. Everyone brought something awesome to the table and helping bring Austin Zumbro's vision to life was icing on the cake. Our cast was full of talented actors who understood the value of collaboration and team work. I believe this show was such a huge success because everyone involved truly cared about making this show amazing and put all of their hard work into making it a memorable experience for our young audiences."

 

Congratulations to our three Finalists and ALL the Finalists for this year's TBA Awards. The awards ceremony is Monday, November 16. We'll be sure to keep you posted on the results!

Meet our newest BACT Bloggers!

We are excited to introduce you to our newest BACT Bloggers this season: Charlette and Kara! We'll let them tell you a little bit more about themselves.

"My name is Charlette. I am 7 years old. I really like acting and fashion. I also write my own songs. I have a dog named Roscoe. I live with my mom and dad. We have family dinners at my Oma and Opa once a week."

"Hi, my name is Kara. My favorite color is blue. I love to read. For example, I have read 70 Boxcar Children books. I also like to play soccer and collect Japanese erasers. I live in Vacaville with my parents, two younger sisters and a little brother."









Julietta, our veteran blogger, will still be writing posts for us this season as well! We look forward to the insights and unique perspectives all three of our BACT Bloggers will bring!

Julietta Blogs: Interview with Composer/Playwright Austin Zumbro

BACT Blogger Julietta returns; this time with an exclusive interview with the composer/playwright for The Day the Crayons Quit - Austin Zumbro! Julietta is a Bay Area native.  She enjoys art, crafting, theater, nature, and outdoors. In 9 years of soaking up creative talents, she has found many outlets for her creative energy. Activities such as Rainbow Loom, 4-H classes, Lego building and cartwheels take up most of her time.

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The Day the Crayons Quit play was great! It was about crayons quitting because they are not being treated well. Red doesn't want to work on holidays and Blue is so short she cant see over the edge of the crayon box, and Peach, Yellow, Beige, Black, Orange, and Pink are also quitting and Green is quitting only because Yellow and Orange are fighting about being the color of the sun.

After the show I got to interview Austin, who was the composer and writer of the play. To pick a book for a musical at the BACT office they have a bunch of books to read and they choose the best books for the play. Some books might not make a good musical because they are too complicated and some are not good because they don't have much of a story. To make a play they read the book and come up with ideas for the play. The Day the Crayons Quit was good because it has both words and pictures to show what the characters are like.

To make songs for the play they read the book and think of good ways to make songs for the book. Austin starts by by humming a tune and then thinking of good words for the song. The Day the Crayons Quit was a really good choice because the crayons write letters to Duncan and in addition to the letters the crayons could sing songs. Some of the lines in the songs are words the crayons say in their letters. When Austin first read The Day the Crayons Quit, he knew that he wanted to have it be in a play. He said the most fun to write was Peach's song and it was also fun to write Pink's song. It was also one of the first songs he thought of. The Day the Crayons Quit was Austin's 4th musical he has written. He wrote one about the California gold rush, one about a science fair, and one called Safe Routes to School.

Julietta (center) with composer/playwright Austin Zumbro (right)

His favorite crayon is Blue. He really likes Blue's attitude cause she is stubby but she is happy about coloring. In the book he likes blue's illustration. To get started being a composer/writer he has always liked writing and he would write stories a lot. And in 6th grade he learned to play the piano, and after high school he learned to play the guitar. He started making silly songs for friends then later on he started writing plays and wrote short movie scripts and mostly wrote stuff for his friends. He has done really great with his plays so far and I hope to see many more!

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The Day the Crayons Quit, the Musical is currently playing at Oakland Children's Fairyland thru July 26. You can purchase your tickets through the show page.

NOW ACCEPTING BACT 2015-2016 Blogger Applications!
If you are interested in becoming a BACT Blogger, fill out our online application by July 31.

Disney Awards $100,000 Grant to the Bay Area Children’s Theatre

We are ecstatic to announce that Bay Area Children’s Theatre has been awarded a $100,000 grant from The Walt Disney Company to help bring the Disney Musicals in Schools program to the San Francisco Bay Area. BACT was one of only four arts organizations in the nation selected this year to collaborate with Disney Musicals in Schools (DMIS). The program is an outreach initiative developed by Disney Theatrical Group to create ongoing theater programs in local elementary schools.

The Disney grant will fund two years of programming—five schools will be selected this year, and another five next year. The after-school programs are free to participating schools. BACT will select five Oakland public elementary schools to participate in 2015.

“We are overjoyed with this incredible opportunity to bring musical theatre to elementary schools in our community,” says Nina Meehan, executive director of the Bay Area Children’s Theatre. “All children benefit from access to live theatre, both as performers and as audience members. We see the positive impact of performance-based theatre education in all the schools we serve. The Disney Musicals in School program will strengthen our capacity to provide programming and training in the performing arts that schools will be able to sustain. We are extremely grateful to Disney for its commitment to and support for this work.”

Applications are now being taken for the 2015 program from Oakland Unified School District public or charter elementary schools in which 70 percent or more of the student population qualifies for free or reduced-cost lunch.

For more information and to apply, please visit our DMIS webpage or call (510) 2962-4433 ext. 7005 or email dmis@bactheatre.org. The application deadline is September 11, 2015.

Julietta Blogs: Interview with Fancy Nancy!

BACT Blogger Julietta is back! This time, she got to sit down with Miss Fancy Nancy herself, the talented actor Catherine Bartomeo! Julietta is a Bay Area native.  She enjoys art, crafting, theater, nature, and outdoors. In 8 years of soaking up creative talents, she has found many outlets for her creative energy. Activities such as Rainbow Loom, 4-H classes, Lego building and cartwheels take up most of her time.

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The Fancy Nancy play was magnefique!! The Fancy Nancy books are about a girl named Nancy who loves being fancy. The play was about the book Fancy Nancy and the Deep Sea Ballet, where Fancy Nancy is going to be in a school play about the ocean, and she wants to be a mermaid, but instead,she is a tree. When she finds out her best friend Bree is the mermaid, she is mad. She wants to be happy for Bree, but she wanted to be the mermaid. At the end, she finds out even though she is a tree in the play, she can still be fancy. My favorite part was the shark rap song. All the characters did a great job in the performance to make the play a fun and fancy experience. Even the audience dressed up fancy! I love reading Fancy Nancy and the play is very fun to see. I think Bay Area Children's Theatre does the best at plays and is my favorite theater to go to and watch plays. I cant wait for the next season for the theater and already know it is going to be amazing like always. I really love bay area childrens theater and highly recommend it to anyone who has never seen their plays.
 

Catherine Bartomeo as Fancy Nancy and Derricka Smith as Bree!

I got to interview with Katie who is playing Fancy Nancy. She gets into character by warming up with the cast by singing a song and thinking about her character. Her advice for kids who want to act is that they should take theater and voice lessons. Her favorite part of the fancy Nancy play is when she finds out she is a tree for the school play instead of a mermaid. Her favorite play she has been in was Cosette in Les Miserables. Her favorite Fancy Nancy book is Fancy Nancy and the Deep Sea Ballet. Her favorite fancy word is Ooh la la. Her favorite part of preparing for plays is getting to research her character. Her favorite fancy accessory is her seashell crown. She has loved being fancy and dressing up since she was little so she thinks it is very great and fun getting to play Fancy Nancy.
 

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Fancy Nancy, the Musical runs thru May 3rd in Berkeley, May 9-17 in San Ramon (all performances are sold out!), May 23-June 7 in Mill Valley, and June 13-21 in San Francisco. Click here for tickets and more info!

The Bay Area Children’s Theatre to Perform in Shanghai

The BACT cast of James and the Giant Peach

We have GIANT news to share: Bay Area Children's Theatre is going international! Actors, artists and educators from BACT will be traveling to China this summer to perform our production of James and the Giant Peach! 

Many of you saw our presentation of Pasek & Paul's musical James and the Giant Peach in its California debut this past winter. The executive director of Shanghai Children’s Art Theatre also attended one of our performances and enjoyed the show so much, she has invited us to her theatre as part of a cross-cultural exchange!

Shanghai Children's Art Theatre performance venue.
Photo: Charles Xia

The Shanghai Children’s Art Theatre is a dynamic performing arts organization that is bringing cutting edge children’s programming to the families of Shanghai. It's that city's largest theater dedicated to professional productions for young audiences. BACT will debut James and the Giant Peach in Shanghai with four performances on August 1 and 2.

We are so honored to be included in the theatre’s roster of international visitors for 2015. Our cast and design team are very excited about taking our work abroad for the first time and introducing a vibrant new play in the great tradition of American musical theatre!

Genevieve Blogs: How to Make a China Rabbit Come to Life On Stage

BACT Blogger Genevieve is back! This time, she had a special assignment about our show The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane: How do you make a main character who is an inanimate object come to life on-stage? Genevieve is 12 years old and in sixth grade at Kensington Hilltop School. She loves theater and has been going to productions since she was three years old. Genevieve enjoys reading, writing, traveling, and playing piano. She lives in Kensington with her parents and two younger siblings. Genevieve just played Hamlet in her school play. She thinks BACT is awesome and everybody who works there really inspires her!

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     Most of us have had imaginary friends, stuffed animals, or dolls. Whenever we play with them, we usually imagine and create what this inanimate object is thinking, either by saying it out loud, or thinking it in our heads. In books, authors can simply write what the object is thinking. However, in live theater, it’s much harder to explain exactly what the doll or stuffed animal is thinking so that the audience will understand. 

     People who take part in productions with inanimate creatures must be very creative. In Bay Area Children’s Theatre’s (BACT) most recent production called The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, the main character is a china rabbit named Edward Tulane. He belongs to a little girl and one day he is lost and re-discovered by several new families. In this story Edward Tulane learns humility and love and is exposed to sadness for the first time and really does go on a miraculous journey. Although he imagines many things and tries to talk to people, he cannot be heard or understood by humans.

     I imagine that it was probably really hard to figure out how to make Edward heard by the audience. It is really important that he is heard, or else the story wouldn’t make very much sense. The creative and production teams explained what Edward was thinking on stage by having the characters hold a china rabbit doll, as if he was a normal doll. Nearby, another actor stood with a guitar, speaking Edward’s thoughts to the audience. The actor speaking Edward’s words stayed close to the doll and was perfectly still as if he was an inanimate object.

     It was brave of the playwright to take on the challenge of turning this story into a play, and for BACT to produce it, because it is more common for books to have objects as main characters. In books, authors can write about the adventures and the object’s conversations. In plays, it is different. I don’t know if I have ever seen a play like this one! It must have been a very difficult production to be a part of.

     I loved this production because it had live music and an interesting storyline. It was filled with happiness, sadness, hopefulness, and most especially love. I enjoyed the interesting people and props that were a part of the play. I also thought that the acting was really good. I am thankful to everybody who took part of this production.
 

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The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane runs thru March 22nd at the Osher Studio in downtown Berkeley, then runs from March 28-April 12 at the Children's Creativity Museum in San Francisco. Click here for tickets.