Classes / Performing Arts
Performing Arts
Riverhouse Folktales Theatre Co. is the children's theater company at Riverhouse Create — a real stage, a costumer who fits every child, and a part for everyone who walks in.
What happens on the stage
The black box is a real theater — lights overhead, black walls, a bare stage and no scenery to hide behind. It is small, and that is the point. A child here gets a part and lines to learn instead of a place in the back row of a chorus. Diana Rell Dean teaches and directs, and she casts the children who are standing in front of her.
They make the show as well as perform it. The puppet theater and its stage were built by the children themselves, with Betty Poindexter, who also makes the costumes and fits them. A story comes in, often out of a children's book, and gets cut down to a length that suits the ages in the room. Then the piece goes up over a run of days: who comes on when, how a puppet talks, where you stand when someone else is speaking. On the last day the doors open and families and guests sit down to watch.
The next one is 2 Poems at Christmas, December 18 to 23, with the children's public performance on the last day. Workshops for grown-ups are announced as they are set, alongside the other events.
Riverhouse Folktales Theatre Co.
On stage this year
The company at work, and the room they perform in.
Who teaches here
A director and a costumer, and a company of children who perform what they make.
