Backstage Pass Newsletter | November 2019
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THEATRE BAY AREA AWARDS Congratulations to Min Kahng and Joan Howard! Congratulations to Min Kahng and all the amazing artists who created BACT's Gold: the Midas Musical for winning Outstanding World Premiere Musical at this year's TBA Awards and to Joan Howard for winning top honors for prop design for The Cat in the Hat / El Gato Ensombrerado! |
 Min Kahng, playwright and composer, Bob Shryock, director, at the TBA Awards, San Francisco, November 4, 2019. |
WHERE THE MOUNTAIN MEETS THE MOON
Finding that Friendly Dragon
Thoughts from Executive Artistic Director, Nina Meehan
Reposted with permission from the Piedmont Post
In Bay Area Children’s Theatre’s latest production, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, the main character, Minli, chooses to leave her family to go on an epic journey to improve their fortune. Along the way, she encounters magic, battles tigers, and uses her wits to create a bridge to her destination—the lofty abode of the Old Man in the Moon. But she doesn’t do these things alone.
STORY EXPLORERS WILL EXPAND TO OAKLAND
Serving students with Autism and Other Disabilities
Over the past three years, Bay Area Children's Theatre has been developing Story Explorers, an immersive and sensory-friendly (i.e. quiet, never dark) musical theatre experience for children living with autism and other disabilities. In February, with support from the Walter and Elise Haas Fund, we will launch the next phase of the program–a new, six-week curriculum for special day classes in the Oakland schools during which our teaching artists will introduce students incrementally to different phases of the musical to prepare them to enjoy an entire performance of Story Explorers at the end of the classes.
ARTIST SPOTLIGHT
Meet Daniel Mertzlufft!
Q&A with the Composer for Construction Site on Christmas Night
Ella Sobel, Bay Area Children's Theatre Student Leadership Team Member, sits down with Composer Daniel Mertzlufft and talks about inspiration, influences and choices.
BABY RAVE
Our Monthly Dance Party Featured in the LA Times
By Sonja Sharp, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
Photos/Video, Christina House, Los Angeles
for The LA Times, October 16, 2019
OAKLAND — Stuffed animals are forbidden at Coachella, and the Electric Daisy Carnival prohibits pacifiers. But the WubbaNub — a mashup of the two comfort objects — is the hot dance party accessory among the newest club kids in the Bay Area.
Read more at the LA Times website »
A LONG-TERM COMMITMENT TO CHILDREN
Witkin Charitable Foundation's Ken Kuchman Carries the Legacy Forward
It began with a phone call, 14 years ago, when BACT Executive Artistic Director Nina Meehan dialed the Bernard E. and Alba Witkin Charitable Foundation and found the gracious and sympathetic Alba Witkin herself on the other end of the line. Since that day, the Witkin Foundation--now under the dedicated leadership of Alba's son, Ken Kuchman--has become BACT's longest-term major foundation supporter, providing generous, steady underwriting for our work.