A pop culture phenomenon comes to the musical stage! The

Emmy Award-winning 1970’s Saturday morning cartoon series that taught history, grammar, math, science and politics through clever, tuneful songs is not only making a small-screen comeback, instructing a whole new generation to ”Unpack Your Adjectives“ and ”Do The Circulation,“ is lighting up stages everywhere, from school multi-purpose rooms to university and regional theatres all around the country.

Tom, a nerve-wracked school teacher nervous about his first day of teaching, tries to relax by watching TV when various characters representing facets of his personality emerge from the set and show him how to win his students over with imagination and music, through such beloved ”Schoolhouse Rock“ songs as ”Just A Bill,“ ”Lolly, Lolly, Lolly“ and ”Conjunction Junction.“

The original Schoolhouse Rock television series was the brainchild of an advertising executive who noticed his son could remember all the words to popular songs on the radio,

but could not remember the multiplication tables. He reasoned that if important educational information was coupled with exciting animation and catchy music, children would be able to learn and remember it.

A National Tour of Old-time, Bluegrass, Mountain Gospel and Flatfoot Dance

The Music From the Crooked Road tour celebrates the vibrant, living musical culture of Southwest Virginia where making music is, and always has been, an integral part of life. The tour features: NEA National Heritage Award Fellow and Appalachian guitar master Wayne Henderson, bluegrass banjo virtuoso Sammy Shelor, family old-time string band The White Top Mountain Band, old-time fiddle and banjo masters Kirk Sutphin and Eddie Bond and, representing the next generation of Blue Ridge musicians, the up-andcoming bluegrass band Amber Collins and Another Day, and a young keeper of ancient mountain ballads and songs, 21-year-old Elizabeth LaPrelle.

Winding for over 200 miles across the mountains, ridges and valleys of southwestern Virginia from the eastern slopes of the Blue Ridge to the coalfields, the Crooked Road (Hwy. 58) passes through some of the most musical places on earth. For generations, the tiny rural Appalachian communities scattered along its length have produced an abundance of extraordinary traditional musicians. Keepers of an historic

musical legacy with roots in the meeting of the African banjo and the European violin during colonial times, they have created and passed on old-time, bluegrass and mountain gospel sounds that have profoundly influenced the development of American music.

The outstanding artists appearing on this tour link the past, present and future of deeply rooted American traditions. They represent the thousands of area musicians, singers and dancers who love their home grown music, and make it every day in family kitchens, workshops, jam sessions at the local Dairy Queen, community dances, sings and musical gatherings of every conceivable variety.

Reviews from Audiences
 

"I was really glad that I took myself out to this show last night...from the first note to the last it was just wonderful!"

"After the show the performers came out to the lobby and were really friendly and accessible .... Don't miss this Crooked Road Tour if it comes near you. I had a great time and I'm all smiles today!"

"What a delight....This was a real treat. Each and every artist was a joy to listen to."

"A great night of music. For me the highlights were LaPrelle, Shelor, Sutphin & Bond. The singing was exquisite for the most part--and always very good. Good to see this music on tour in California."

Media Reviews

”It was refreshing to witness the collaboration between the performers and the audience, as we clearly realized we were witnessing something authentic and magical.  It was a welcome peek back into Americana’s roots, and showed that the spirit lives on, centuries later.  To steal a line from the traditional encore, ”how sweet the sound.“

- Santa Barbara Independent

”The audience members whooped, hollered and raised so much ruckus, they could have been at a hootenanny.  The musicians responded with a rousing show of more than 40 songs, played on guitars, banjos, fiddles, mandolins and a bass fiddle.“

- The Modesto Bee

Dear first-grade journal,
 

Hooray, hooray! Theatreworks USA is making a brand-new musical (that is bunch of talking all jumbled together with singing and dancing, I believe). And what do you know! It's all about me, Junie B. Jones! (The B stands for Beatrice, only I do not like Beatrice. I just like B and that's all.)

This is the bestest musical ever, I tell you! It's got loads of funny songs, and it's based on a bunch of books this lady, Barbara Park, wrote about me and the things I do in first grade.

Junie B., First Grader (at Last!)

In first grade, I meet new friends (like Herb and José, but not that tattle-tale May).  But my new teacher, Mr. Scary, thinks I might need glasses!

Junie B., Boss of Lunch

I get to help my friend, the cafeteria lady! And I get to wear a real actual hair net too! Who knows.... Maybe someday I'll be the boss of the whole lunch operation!

Junie B., One-Man Band

The whole entire first grade is having a kickball tournament! Only, when I practice my kicking, I stub my piggy toe so badly I can't play. But my friend Sheldon can't play either, so maybe we can do a half-time show instead!

Whew! I'm glad I can write everything down in my Top-Secret Personal Beeswax Journal! And you know what? I think I might like first grade after all!

Love, (but not the mushy kind)

Junie B.

Target is the National Tour Sponsor of this production.

A truly "out of this world" experience awaits the Chuck Mathena Center - Universe of Dreams presents music, poetry, and stories with spectacular projected imagery from the Hubble Space Telescope.

Narrated by Neal Conan, host of NPR's Talk of the Nation, this concert marries music to words in a way that is both compelling and beautiful.

The evocative music of the Celtic/Early Music Crossover group Ensemble Galilei presents the perfect backdrop for works by some of the finest poets in America. A Universe of Dreams includes text from Stanley Kunitz, Jim Harrison, William Shakespeare, and a re-telling of a Navajo Creation Myth, all performed with images from the Hubble that have transformed our understanding of the universe.

Neal Conan

Award-winning journalist Neal Conan is the host of Talk of the Nation, the national news-talk call-in show from NPR News. Conan brings three decades of news and radio experience to the show, which reaches nearly 3 million listeners a week on more than 280 NPR member stations.

A little red truck  pulls into Princeton, WV with everything it takes to mount a full-scale musical production...except the cast.
 

That's where the children in our region come in.

Regional students audition and are cast as characters.  By Saturday,
they've gained character -          
        the kind that really counts.

The Missoula Children's Theatre provides a week-long residency "starring" 50-60 of local students in a full-scale musical.

This week-long residency begins with an open group audition and culminates in two public performances.  Fifty to sixty students grades K-12, or a combination of these ages, are cast and well rehearsed throughout the week, learning lines, songs and choreography to perform as an ensemble in producing a full-length musical. All of our shows are original adaptations of children's stories and fairytales—a twist on the classic stories that you know and love.