Touring Outreach Company

2009 · 2010 Touring Outreach Season

A Forest Fable

An environmental fable about a city that destroys its naturalbeauty in order to support its only industry. When the characters realize that their landscape has been devastated, the audience must play a role in the rebuilding process. Through storytelling, students imagine a future without natural resources and realize the importance of balance, preservation, and knowing that actions have consequences. Children are essential to making a difference on our planet!

Curriculum Connections:

• PA Academic Standards: Arts and Humanities; Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening; Economics; Environment and Ecology; Science and Technology.
• Humans and the environment; sustainability; human impacts; supply and demand.
• Renewable and nonrenewable resources; availability; management; influential factors.
• Earth sciences; science, technology

FOR GRADES K – 6

Adapted by Ernie Nolan from

If You Take A Mouse To School

Join the famous Mouse from the #1 national bestselling "If You Give…" series on his first day of school. Laughter and surprises are in store for students as Mouse goes on a romp through Science Day, discovering that riding the bus, reviewing homework, spelling, solving math problems, eating lunch, writing and playing in gym are all loads of fun. This might be the best day of school ever!

Curriculum Connections:

• PA Academic Standards: Arts and Humanities; Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening; Family and Consumer Sciences; Health, Safety and Physical Education; Mathematics.
• Reading critically in all content areas; analysis and evaluation of a literary adaptation; based on a popular children's book.
• Extensive look at sequence, cause and effect, conditional statements (if-then) and following directions.
• Balancing family, work and community responsibility; school involvement.

FOR GRADES K – 6

Freedom Riders

This inspirational show takes students on a ride back in time to the turbulent 1960s. Join two teenage students as they become part of important historical scenes involving Teddy Roosevelt, Rosa Parks, Ossie Davis, W.E.B. DuBois, Martin Luther King, Jr., Robert F. Kennedy, Malcolm X and others. As they retrace the difficult and finally triumphant road to freedom, your own students will be moved by the events they will witness on this Freedom Ride. They'll begin to recognize the hope that tolerance can offer and the valuable strength of the human spirit.

Curriculum Connections:

• PA Academic Standards: Arts and Humanities; Civics and Government; History.
• Examines key contributions of individuals and groups during America's Civil Rights Movement.
• Discusses issues of racial equality and political activism.
• US history; historical analysis and skills development; rights and responsibilities of citizenship; violence prevention.
• Historical and cultural contexts; conflict and cooperation among groups; speeches and writings that impact civic life.
• Ideal for Black History Month or Diversity Awareness.

FOR GRADES 6 – 12

I Never Saw Another Butterfly

Terezin was the last stop before Auschwitz for hundreds of thousands, including 15,000 Jewish children. This one-act play is based on the poetry created by these children including Raja, an optimistic young woman who has the courage to love despite imprisonment. She and the young man Honza share a simple romance of shared poetry and shared dreams. Raja, who teaches the other children, when there is little to teach with and helps give them hope when there is little reason for hope, triumphantly survives Terezin, "not alone and not afraid."

Curriculum Connections:

• PA Academic Standards: Arts and Humanities; Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening; Civics and Government; Geography; History.
• Historical and cultural contexts and perspectives in the arts.
• Reading, analyzing and interpreting literature; poetry; inspired by a collection of children's drawings and poems.
• World history; historical analysis and skills development; contributions of individuals and groups; conflict and cooperation among groups.
• Human characteristics of places and regions.
• Ideal for Holocaust Curriculum, Cultural Awareness and Diversity.

FOR GRADES 6 – 12

The Boy Who Cried Bully

Meet Nate, a typical third-grader with a love for telling tall tales. Nate's biggest problem is Sam, a fifth-grade bully who has it in for him and his friends. Thankfully, Bob the Bully-Buster visits to teach Nate's class what they can do to identify and prevent bullying in school. Based on the classic Aesop's fable, The Boy Who Cried Wolf, this honest, funny and engaging production looks at stretching truths and accepting differences.

Curriculum Connections:

• PA Academic Standards: Arts and Humanities; Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening; Health, Safety and Physical Education.
• Extensive look at the dangers of bullying; based on a classic Aesop's fable.
• Safety and injury prevention; strategies to avoid/manage conflict.
• Reading critically in all content areas; analysis and evaluation of folktale adaptation.

FOR GRADES K – 6