Another great – although hot – day at the International Children’s Festival! I went to a performance of Margaret Wise Brown’s Good Night Moon and The Runaway Bunny. The performers had amazing stage sets – Runaway Bunny mostly used a powerpoint on screen (and puppets for the bunny and rabbit in their various manifestations, and some parts of the scenes), but for Good Night Moon they had a physical set that really looked like the book illustrations – with removable parts so they could make it look like parts of the wall paintings came to life (ie the Cow that jumped over the Moon). The puppeteers were great – and the show was very clever. I thought it would have been better for a slightly older audience – closer to 8 years old than to 2 years old.

The bunny - hiding in part of the set for The Runaway Bunny - but standing in the set for Good Night Moon (taken after the show during questions)

After the show, I helped kids making bead bracelets for an hour, and then was assigned to help with another show – Harmony Street. This was another show based on a children’s book – Harmony Street by Ruth Ochs Webster. The book is about a boy who wants to learn to play the drums, and he visits all his neighbors and “meets” their drums from different parts of the world – every drum sounds different, and every musician uses a different music style. In the show, the story was performed by a woman, and at each appropriate section, the drummers came out.It was very loud – but fantastic.

The two shows were interesting examples of ways to use children’s books – it was great.

I also got to meet and talk with one of the dancers from Farfalle – I saw her watching the first show, and I went up afterwards – walked her to the next show she was seeing because it was a difficult one to find. So that was exciting for me.

After the Festival was my interview – it went well – we’re to schedule an in-person interview very soon!

I also got my car back – for those who don’t know, there was a hit-and-run on the car while I was away, and it needed about $4k of work. But it runs better than ever before, and fortunately I have insurance.

So overall, a good day!