The Belle Nanas and Poppops

present

CAT TALES

An all-family Play with Actors and Puppets

        CAT  TALES   is a family friendly show for children ages 5 to 95 and up. We celebrate our whiskered friends starting with a sing-along of the “Hey Diddle, Diddle” poem performed by actors operating traditional limberjack dolls and props.

        Following that is “The Song of the Jellicles” poem from Possum’s Book of Practical Cats by T.S. Eliot (not the Broadway musical version).  Actors recite Eliot’s delightful verses while performing a stylized gavotte and leading the audience in a sing-along of the chorus.

        Our featured work is an actor and puppet rendition of “The Cat That Walked by Himself” from Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories for Children.  Actors portray The Narrator, and cave Man and cave Woman in this fable about the domestication of animals. Other actors, in full view of the audience, interact with the cast operating large hand puppets portraying Dog, Horse, Cow, Cat and other animals.  This funny, sophisticated and all-ages engaging tale is told in the bedtime story form just as Kipling wrote it.

        The program is 50 minutes long with a Question and Answer session following and then an invitation to meet the cast and the puppets .

PERFORMANCES at local libraries and other community centers

Tours begin in April 

see Touring Schedule  for details