Whether it’s 1860, and you’re writing a play to put on in your crowded family room like Jo in LITTLE WOMEN; or it’s 2019 and you’re a teen staying up late trying to come up with a tweet to make your friends laugh: the words you choose have power. Learning to communicate—to tell a story— is a skill that will always be valuable.
In our world today, 
stories are experienced so rapidly it’s difficult to retain their message before jumping onto the next big “thing.” Teens especially are exposed to hundreds of thousands of possible forms of entertainment and are rarely encouraged to experience any one for longer than a few minutes. Telling a story, however, is a slow process that opens doors to deeper-level thinking, and encourages useful self-investigation. Joyfully, most children are eager to tell stories if they are given the space and time to share.
Now, here’s an exercise you can download and pass on to your Jo(e), Meg or Amy. 
Encourage them to write a letter (or e-mail if more convenient) to a grandparent or someone dear to them. Ask them to retell a story they have recently heard or seen – it can be silly or serious. Make sure they indicate the source of the story. Write back and tell them a favorite story of yours and how you experienced it. The goal of the exercise is to allow the child to not only examine how they like to get their information, but also to help them discover their own preferences and organically establish connections with others.
Invite the grandmas and grandpas in your world to see LITTLE WOMEN running December 7 – 22, and don’t forget to see Nana herself in LAST STOP ON MARKET STREET this March!
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Family bonding time is great at a DCT play. Buy tickets at dct.org!
IMAGE CREDIT: LAST STOP ON MARKET STREET permission granted by Penguin Random House LLC.
Photo by Karen Almond
Charli has previously been seen in DCT’s National Touring productions of The Musical Adventures of Flat Stanley and Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters: An African Tale. Also at DCT, you may have seen her in the Dallas premiere of The Very Hungry Caterpillar Show; and the 2010 production of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. She has appeared in several productions throughout the Dallas area including The Three Musketeers with Theatre Britain, Jack The Ripper with Pocket Sandwich Theatre, and Marianela with MBS Productions.
A veteran of Dallas area theater, Mr. Burks has worked with Dallas Children’s Theater for many years as an Equity actor, stage manager, sound designer, and director. He is a founding member of the nationally acclaimed Kathy Burks Theatre of Puppetry Arts and has earned the distinction of Master Puppeteer. A popular actor with DCT audiences, Doug will be remembered for his many roles on the DCT stage, which include The Giver (The Giver), Goodnight Moon (Larry the Tooth Fairy), James and the Giant Peach (Old Grasshopper), Peter Pan (Captain Hook), Young King Arthur (Merlin), The Emperor’s New Clothes (the Emperor), The Mummy’s Claw (Sir Nevil Blore), Jungalbook (Baloo), Holes (Mr. Sir), and Treasure Island (Long John Silver). He also portrayed the title characters in Frankenstein, The Reluctant Dragon, The Canterville Ghost, and the 2001 production of The BFG (Big Friendly Giant). Mr. Burks was a member of the first graduating class of Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Dallas, Texas.
Gerald feels joyful and triumphant to be home for the holidays at DCT. You may have seen him in last season’s The Snowy Day and Other Stories by Ezra Jack Keats, or in the National Tours for The BFG (Big Friendly Giant) and Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters: An African Tale. Next for Gerald is the world premiere of Denise Lee’s Funny, You Don’t Act Like A Negro, followed by The Elephant Man at Theatre Three.
Teddy Warren is an Equity Actor originally from Milwaukee, WI. He graduated from SMU with a BFA in Theatre Studies and is happy to be back in Dallas to play with DCT again. Locally, Teddy has worked with Shakespeare Dallas in Romeo and Juliet, Trinity Shakespeare in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Stage West in Murder for Two. As always, special thanks and love to the McPhersons.
THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR CHRISTMAS SHOW
The non-scientific explanation for The Hungry Caterpillar butterfly coming out of a cocoon and not the more scientifically-accurate chrysalis is that when Eric Carle was a child his father would tell him to “come out of his cocoon” and be more receptive to the world around him. He liked the sound of that much more than “come out of your chrysalis”. In his words: “Poetry won out over science!”
Eric Carle and Mr. Rogers are the same age, and he taped a short segment on Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood with him. Eric Carle has said of his and Rogers’ work: “I think he and I try to do the same thing, which is to take a subject we consider important and explore it with our audiences and readers. We don’t tell children, we let them discover for themselves.”
Eric Carle is bilingual, speaking both English and German. He was born in Syracuse, New York and spoke English until he was 6, but moved to Germany and then spoke only German. When he moved back to the United States, he was 22 and he spoke English once more.
The iconic Hungry Caterpillar almost never existed! Eric Carle’s original idea was a green “bookworm”, and it was to be called “A Week With Willi the Worm”. His editor, Ann Beneduce, wasn’t fond of the idea of a worm character, and suggested a caterpillar instead!
situations and the tough barriers they face, in part, because so little energy is focused on teens. This means a wall of confusion and rejection often meets them,” said Robyn Flatt, Founder and Executive Artistic Director of DCT. “By increasing our awareness and understanding of these young people as human beings, as vulnerable young people among us, we can provide a supportive space during their search to find true identity, and as a result, we hopefully make the journey less painful.”
first decision was to speak with some of the two percent of high school students who identify as transgender. For Coleman, this included talking to a teen who recently transitioned and his parents. Using these conversations and research as inspiration, Coleman said he deliberately decided to use honesty and humor as tools for telling this story in hopes that it would have the broadest possible appeal. Coleman hoped to create an atmosphere of good will and understanding that will help audiences begin an important conversation around this topic. “I hope as our audiences get to know Andi, they’ll also get to know something about themselves,” Coleman said.
Performing and Visual Arts and in partnership with First Unitarian Church of Dallas. Additional support for the production comes from collaborating partners and sponsors Texas Instruments, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), and Capital One.
his thoughts on the company’s involvement in this project, “Theater is a powerful vehicle that helps bring different experiences to light. We are proud to support DCT’s efforts to further the dialogue and share experiences around the topic of teens and young transgender people.” Smith said the company works every day to build an inclusive environment where people can be who they are, and have open discussions that help them understand other perspectives.
doing business. He said, “We believe it is vital to collaborate to bring new audiences to participate in this groundbreaking play exploring the transition of a transgender boy. I believe this play touches on universal elements of diversity and inclusion that can impact anyone when dealing with an unfamiliar situation.”
Financial Services, echoes the sentiments of her corporate peers. “Many teens may either be going through their own transgender journeys or may have friends, family, acquaintances or schoolmates who are. This is also a topic which is increasingly being talked about in news channels. Creating dialogue around the transgender experience is an incredibly important purpose, and the empathy that can be created through the medium of theater will create meaningful opportunities for further discussion, tolerance, and ultimately, inclusion of transgender people.”
to be a partner in this project. He said, “As a progressive church, we know that everyone has dignity and worth no matter who they are. First Unitarian has been an open and affirming church for over 45 years and, in the last five years, has seen an increase in our parishioners who are navigating transgender issues. We know how little most people even know about being transgender and believe that supporting this effort is not only good for our church, but also for our society.” As a producing partner, First Unitarian Church of Dallas will lead a community action event scheduled for March/April 2020.
topics including bullying, learning differences, teen brain development, eating disorders, and dating violence. Subject matter resources lead a discussion after each of these types of performances. At the performances, teens and parents are provided information and perspective on the topic, as well as guidance on how to navigate the inherent trauma imbedded in these situations.
American theater – awarded DCT and its partners a major grant to support the production and the events surrounding ANDI BOI as part of its second round of Audience (R)Evolution Cohort Grants. Funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the program gives 
awards to theater organizations to implement and refine ways to increase audience engagement and community development with a focus on young audiences.The grant will support the project’s goal of building a community to support teens and their parents and encouraging conversation and understanding of transgender youth in a safe and open environment.
ANDI BOI
3. When Louisa May Alcott was 15, she took to writing plays, much like Jo does in Little Women. Her older sister Anna (who the character of Meg in Little Women is inspired by) also caught the theater bug, and both of them acted and performed in numerous over-the-top and incredibly serious plays they would later be embarrassed by. In Little Women, the melodramatic play Jo writes has a main character named Zara. Louisa May Alcott’s childhood plays had this same main character!
vote that she passed out petitions and organized meeting groups about the importance of voting and even resorted to scolding and dragging groups of women who claimed to be “too busy” or uninterested to register. The turnout was disappointing (one vote only had 8 women arrive total, 2 of which were Louisa May Alcott and her sister Anna), but Louisa kept voting anyway.
TEEN SCENE PLAYERS PRESENT
Oftentimes, the best lessons taught to a child are the lessons that give them the inspiration to pursue their own passions. Eric Carle, author of The Very Hungry Caterpillar and over 70 other stories, has expressed that the highest compliment a child can offer when looking at his art is to say “I can do that.”
“I begin with plain tissue paper and paint it with different colors, using acrylics. Sometimes I paint with a wide brush, sometimes with a narrow brush. Sometimes my strokes are straight, and sometimes they’re wavy. Sometimes I paint with my fingers. Or I paint on a piece of carpet, sponge, or burlap and then use that like a stamp on my tissue papers to create different textures.
These papers are my palette and after they have dried, I store them in color-coded drawers. Let’s say I want to create a caterpillar: I cut out a circle for the head from a red tissue paper and many ovals for the body from green tissue papers; and then I paste them with wallpaper glue onto an illustration board to make the picture.”
to cut into shapes. Eric Carle’s painting technique has been around for ages, and while messy, can be accomplished by all ages! If you don’t want to paste your painted and cut tissue paper on fancy illustration board like Eric Carle, a piece of cardboard or thick, sturdy paper will work just as well!
Master Puppeteer Douglass Burks is returning to direct this second show in the series. He truly enjoys bringing these books to life. “One of the things I’m most excited to work on is the new stories” Burks 
said, eager to show off this new production. “They’re so faithful to the books– especially in the design of the puppets.”
SCHOOLHOUSE ROCK LIVE!