The Paper Bag Players, under the artistic direction of Judith Martin, speak directly to their young audiences. Making a friend, doing your homework, going shopping with your parents are subjects that form the basis of their original plays. Starting with the familiar “the Bags” let their imaginations take off. A family vacation across the country turns into a search for a giant (paper) hamburger and a little girl having trouble with a school quiz is helped by a friendly mathematically-inclined (cardboard) alligator.
This combination of the ordinary and the fantastic is the foundation of “the Bags” approach to theater. An approach fully supported by the material they use for their sets, props, costumes. Paper bags, cardboard boxes, old clothes you might find in an attic trunk or ordinary household items: mops, pots, pans, wooden spoons--items children themselves play with—are the raw materials of their unique theatrical world.
And the music! Played live at every show by John Stone on the electric piano—children join in the songs during the performance and are inevitably singing them as they leave the theater. Whether it’s a rag-time beat, the tickle of the slide whistle or the tap tap of a tin can, each and every moment is underlined and enhanced with music.
In “ON TOP OF SPAGHETTI” you’ll help a dashing plumber in his breathtaking battle with a most extra-ordinary leak; learn to never, never, NEVER put the kitty in the bathtub; and take a trip to the moon and back again with a runaway meatball!
The ensemble includes Ted Brackett, Kevin Richard Woodall, Laura Canty-Samuel and Molly Rice. They are called on to play everything from the aforementioned meatball, to a paper-bag leak, to a 12 foot tall cardboard family. They are combination actors, singers, dancers, comedians, acrobats and clowns! They each possess a friendliness that helps involve every member of the young audience.
The Paper Bag Players have for nearly five decades set the standard for quality in children’s entertainment. THE PAPER BAG PLAYERS “ON TOP OF SPAGHETTI” carries on this tradition—delightfully. It’s a show no one will want to miss!
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