Freddy the Pig wants to be a detective, but the mysteries are piling up. Who stole the toy train? Where’s the missing rabbit? How do you lock up a misbehaving fly? Luckily friends like Jinx, a cat, Mrs. Wiggins, a cow, and Mrs. Webb, a spider, can help.
Our new show, based on a series of books by Walter R. Brooks, animated with puppets, masks, music and dance. We’re thrilled to have dancer Robin Treleaven and violinist Reiko Lokker join us for this project.
K–6. 250 students
Curriculum Focus and Expectations
Characteristics:
Integrity, empathy, teamwork and caring.
Relationships, rules, and responsibilities.
Expectations:
Express personal responses and make connections to characters, themes, and issues presented in their own and others' drama works
Demonstrate an awareness of different kinds of drama and theatre from different times and places
Themes:
Storytelling through puppetry, dance and music, using classic stories as source for drama
Freddy the Pig reads a book about Sherlock Holmes and decides to become a detective. His friend Jinx, the cat, tells him that a toy train has been stolen. They follow clues to the barn where nasty rats are hiding in the toy train and using it to steal food in the hay loft. Jinx and Freddy don’t know how to stop them. The hayloft is too high for Freddy, and Jinx can’t reach them when they are protected by the toy train..
Meanwhile, a young rabbit called Egbert disappears. Freddy follows footprints to a place where he sees a worried young rabbit looking after a baby bird. Freddy returns the baby bird to its mother and sends the young rabbit home. On the way home, he meets the mother rabbit, who thanks him for finding Egbert. The worried young rabbit was Egbert all along!
Then a cow called Mrs. Wiggins asks Freddy to help her deal with a misbehaving horsefly called Zero, who’s always biting her. Freddy asks a wasp named George to help, but Zero keeps flying away. Finally, their friend Mrs. Webb, a spider, spins a web and helps put Zero in jail.
Freddy is still trying to get the toy train back, and to stop the rats from stealing the food in the barn. Mrs. Wiggins doesn’t think she has any good ideas, but she suggests they use a rope and a pulley to hook the train and lift it up. Jinx tosses the hook, Freddy uses the pulley to lift up the train, and, as the rats fall out, Freddy and Jinx trap them in a garbage can. The rats promise never to steal from the house or the barn again and to only live in the woods from now on.
Freddy, Jinx and Mrs. Wiggins solved the problem by working together, and they do a happy dance to celebrate.
Times
- Time for set up: 1 hour
- Length of show: 45 minutes
- Question period: 10 minutes
- Take down time: 1 hour
We need use of the performance area for three hours.
Please re-arrange any activities scheduled for that time, and have the space cleared for our arrival.
Seating Arrangement
Our set will extend 25 feet across, and is 20 feet deep. We’ll help the teachers to seat their students.
The students should sit cross-legged on the floor, in order of age. This is easiest to accomplish if the students arrive in order of age, youngest to eldest. The youngest group could arrive about 5 minutes prior to the performance time.
You can see a PDF file of our seating plan for schools here, and our public show seating here.