skip to Main Content
TICKETS: (260) 422-4226 or Artstix

The Secret Garden and Kid-Lit’s Golden Age

The Golden Age of British children’s literature refers to a remarkable period during which a vast number of western literature’s best-loved books were written. Consider that between 1900 and 1930:

  • Beatrix Potter wrote and illustrated her many picture books for young children, beginning with The Tale of Peter Rabbit.
  • A.A. Milne created Winnie the Pooh.
  • E. Nesbit wrote her wonderful children’s novels, including The Railway Children, Five Children and It, and The Enchanted Castle.
  • Frances Hodgson Burnett wrote A Little Princess, The Secret Garden and Little Lord Fauntleroy.
  • J.M. Barrie created Peter Pan.

And this list is not exhaustive at all. There was also an explosion of American children’s literature at around the same time: The Wizard of Oz, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, The Call of the Wild and Pollyanna, to name a few.

The wonderful thing about all these books, to my mind, is that they are not written “down” to children, over-simplified and dripping with moral lessons. Rather, they are strong original stories which are amusing, engaging and often thought-provoking, but which are most appropriate to the genre (fairly new at the time) of children’s literature.

Read more

The cast of The Secret Garden

We are excited to announce the cast for the closing production of our 25th anniversary season, Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden (adapted by Sylvia Ashby): MARY LENNOX--Violet Park* COLIN CRAVEN--Micah Gilliom DICKON SOWERBY--Jack Voirol* MARTHA SOWERBY--Tori Beth Bowman* ARCHIBALD…

Read more

The Just So Stories

JSS show art

 

We are getting excited about our annual “for the whole family” show.  The Just So Stories is the title of a collection by Rudyard Kipling, a British writer from the Victorian era, perhaps best known as the author of The Jungle Book. The Just So Stories are all fanciful “origin” tales, such as “How the Camel Got His Hump”.  all for One’s production is an adaptation by Joseph Robinette which begins with Elsie Kipling, the author’s daughter, awaiting her parents’ return from India. She decides to act out some of the stories her father has written, with the help of her new friends. Five of Kipling’s tales will be featured in the course of the play–which also tells us a bit more about Elsie and her family.

The stories (Kipling’s original titles) being acted out are:

Read more
Back To Top