The First Stage Children's Theater is a professional American children's theater based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Milwaukee is the largest city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin, the 28th most populous city in the United States and 39th most populous region in the United States. It is the county seat of Milwaukee County and is located on the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan. According to 2010 census data, the...

 founded in 1987. Its season (September-June) consists of six mainstage plays and a touring production.

One of the five largest children's theaters in the nation, First Stage has annual audiences of more than 135,000. The 2007-2008 season of plays consisted of Hana's Suitcase, The Quiltmaker's Gift, 12 days- A Milwaukee Christmas, Sleeping Beauty, The Watsons go to Birmingham, and A Year with Frog and Toad. The theater's performance venue is the Todd Wher Theater, with its headquarters in the Milwaukee Youth Arts Center

Milwaukee Youth Arts Center

The Milwaukee Youth Arts Center is a first of its kind Arts-in-education Facility in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It is a contemporary, cutting edge performing arts education and rehearsal facility for the young people of southeastern Wisconsin, and gives children the opportunity to express themselves...

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History

The First Stage Children's Theater, founded in 1987, was originally named First Stage Milwaukee. The young theater's first season (1987–1988) showed only 3 plays, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,Macbeth and The Sleeping Beauty.

First Stage Theater Academy

The First Stage Theater Academy was founded in 1992 to teach life skills through stage skills. It is the teaching arm of the theater, and serves more than 2000 students annually.

1987/88

• The Sleeping Beauty
  Sleeping Beauty
  Sleeping Beauty by Charles Perrault or Little Briar Rose by the Brothers Grimm is a classic fairytale involving a beautiful princess, enchantment, and a handsome prince...
  
  
• Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
  Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
  Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel by Mark Twain, first published in England in December 1884 and in the United States in February 1885. Commonly named among the Great American Novels, the work is among the first in major American literature to be written in the vernacular, characterized by...
  
  
• Macbeth
  Macbeth
  The Tragedy of Macbeth is a play by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607...
  
  

1988/89

• Winnie-the-Pooh
  Winnie-the-Pooh
  Winnie-the-Pooh, also called Pooh Bear, is a fictional anthropomorphic bear created by A. A. Milne. The first collection of stories about the character was the book Winnie-the-Pooh , and this was followed by The House at Pooh Corner...
  
  
• Terror of the Soul: Tales by Poe
  Edgar Allan Poe
  Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
  
  
• Children of a Lesser God
  Children of a Lesser God (play)
  Children of a Lesser God is a play by Mark Medoff, published in 1980 focusing on the conflicted professional and romantic relationship between deaf former student, Sarah Norman, and her teacher, James Leeds. The play was specially written for the Deaf actress Phyllis Frelich, based to some extent...
  
  
• Beauty and the Beast
  Beauty and the Beast
  Beauty and the Beast is a traditional fairy tale. The first published version of the fairy tale was a rendition by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve, published in La jeune américaine, et les contes marins in 1740...
  
  

1989/90

• Tales of Peter Rabbit
  The Tale of Peter Rabbit
  The Tale of Peter Rabbit is a children's book written and illustrated by Beatrix Potter that follows mischievous and disobedient young Peter Rabbit as he is chased about the garden of Mr. McGregor. He escapes and returns home to his mother who puts him to bed after dosing him with camomile tea...
  
  
• Of Mice and Men
  Of Mice and Men
  Of Mice and Men is a novella written by Nobel Prize-winning author John Steinbeck. Published in 1937, it tells the tragic story of George Milton and Lennie Small, two displaced migrant ranch workers during the Great Depression in California, USA....
  
  
• To Kill a Mockingbird
  To Kill a Mockingbird
  To Kill a Mockingbird is a novel by Harper Lee published in 1960. It was instantly successful, winning the Pulitzer Prize, and has become a classic of modern American literature...
  
  
• Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing
  Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing
  Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing is a children's novel written by Judy Blume in 1972. It is the first of the "Fudge books". It was followed by Superfudge, Fudge-A-Mania and, most recently, Double Fudge...
  
  

1990/91

• The Velveteen Rabbit
  The Velveteen Rabbit
  The Velveteen Rabbit or How Toys Become Real is a children's novel written by Margery Williams and illustrated by William Nicholson. It chronicles the story of a stuffed rabbit and his quest to become real through the love of his owner. The book was first published in 1922 and has been republished...
  
  
• The Best Christmas Pageant Ever
  The Best Christmas Pageant Ever
  The Best Christmas Pageant Ever is a book written by Barbara Robinson in 1972. It tells the story of six delinquent children surnamed Herdman. They go to church for the first time after being told that the church offers snacks...
  
  
• Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde
• My Emperor's New Clothes
  The Emperor's New Clothes
  "The Emperor's New Clothes" is a short tale by Hans Christian Andersen about two weavers who promise an Emperor a new suit of clothes that is invisible to those unfit for their positions, stupid, or incompetent...
  
  
• Play to Win: The Jackie Robinson Story
  Jackie Robinson
  Jack Roosevelt "Jackie" Robinson was the first black Major League Baseball player of the modern era. Robinson broke the baseball color line when he debuted with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947...
  
  

1991/92 (5th anniversary season)

• The Ugly Duckling
  The Ugly Duckling
  "The Ugly Duckling" is a literary fairy tale by Danish poet and author Hans Christian Andersen . The story tells of a homely little bird born in a barnyard who suffers abuse from his neighbors until, much to his delight , he matures into a beautiful swan, the most beautiful bird of all...
  
  
• The Best Christmas Pageant Ever
• Animal Farm
  Animal Farm
  Animal Farm is an allegorical novella by George Orwell published in England on 17 August 1945. According to Orwell, the book reflects events leading up to and during the Stalin era before World War II...
  
  
• Hans Brinker, or The Silver Skates
• One Thousand Cranes
  Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes
  Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes is a non-fiction children's book written by American author Eleanor Coerr and published in 1977.This true story is of a girl, Sadako Sasaki, who lived in Hiroshima at the time of the atomic bombing by the United States...
  
  

1992/93

• Winnie-the-Pooh
• The Best Christmas Pageant Ever
• The Outsiders
  The Outsiders (novel)
  The Outsiders is a coming-of-age novel based in 1965 by S. E. Hinton, first published in 1967 by Viking Press. Hinton was 15 when she started writing the novel, but did most of the work when she was sixteen and a junior in high school. Hinton was 18 when the book was published...
  
  
• Heidi
  Heidi
  Heidi is a Swiss work of fiction, published in two parts as Heidi's years of learning and travel and Heidi makes use of what she has learned.It is a novel about the events in the life of a young girl in her grandfather's care, in the Swiss Alps...
  
  
• Bridge to Terabithia
• A Woman Called Truth
  Sojourner Truth
  Sojourner Truth was the self-given name, from 1843 onward, of Isabella Baumfree, an African-American abolitionist and women's rights activist. Truth was born into slavery in Swartekill, New York, but escaped with her infant daughter to freedom in 1826. After going to court to recover her son, she...
  
  - Tour

1993/94

• Snow White
  Snow White
  "Snow White" is a fairy tale known from many countries in Europe, the best known version being the German one collected by the Brothers Grimm...
  
  
• Step on a Crack
• Beatrix Potter's Christmas
  Beatrix Potter
  Helen Beatrix Potter was an English author, illustrator, natural scientist and conservationist best known for her imaginative children’s books featuring animals such as those in The Tale of Peter Rabbit which celebrated the British landscape and country life.Born into a privileged Unitarian...
  
  
• Frankenstein
  Frankenstein
  Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is a novel about a failed experiment that produced a monster, written by Mary Shelley, with inserts of poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Shelley started writing the story when she was eighteen, and the novel was published when she was twenty-one. The first...
  
  
• Bambi: A Life in the Woods
  Bambi, A Life in the Woods
  Bambi, a Life in the Woods, originally published in Austria as Bambi. Eine Lebensgeschichte aus dem Walde, is a 1923 Austrian novel written by Felix Salten and published by Paul Zsolnay Verlag...
  
  
• James & The Giant Peach
  James and the Giant Peach
  James and the Giant Peach is a popular children's novel written in 1961 by British author Roald Dahl. The original first edition published by Alfred Knopf featured illustrations by Nancy Ekholm Burkert. However, there have been various reillustrated versions of it over the years, done by Michael...
  
  
• Little Red Riding Hood
  Little Red Riding Hood
  Little Red Riding Hood, also known as Little Red Cap, is a French fairy tale about a young girl and a Big Bad Wolf. The story has been changed considerably in its history and subject to numerous modern adaptations and readings....
  
   & The Three Little Pigs
  Three Little Pigs
  Three Little Pigs is a fairy tale featuring anthropomorphic animals. Printed versions date back to the 1840s, but the story itself is thought to be much older...
  
  
• The Wind Whispers - Tour
• A Woman Called Truth - Tour

1994/95

• I Never Saw Another Butterfly
  I Never Saw Another Butterfly
  I Never Saw Another Butterfly is a collection of works of art and poetry by Jewish children who lived in the concentration camp Theresienstadt. This book is named after a poem by Pavel Friedman, a young adult who was incarcerated at Theresienstadt and was later killed at Auschwitz. Where known, the...
  
  
• The Yellow Boat
• Beatrix Potter's Christmas
• Rock 'n Roll Shakespeare
• Caddie Woodlawn
  Caddie Woodlawn
  Caddie Woodlawn is a popular children's novel by Carol Ryrie Brink which won the John Newbery Medal in 1936 and the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award in 1958. The original edition was illustrated by Newbery-award winning author and illustrator Kate Seredy...
  
  
• Dinosaur!
• Goldilocks & the Three Bears
• Cuentos - Tour

1995/96

• Ramona Quimby
  Ramona Quimby
  Ramona Geraldine Quimby is a character from a series of novels by Beverly Cleary. She starts out in the Henry Huggins series as the pestering little sister of Henry's friend Beatrice, called "Beezus" by Ramona and her family. She was given a larger role in the novel Beezus and Ramona...
  
  
• A Little House Christmas
  Little House in the Big Woods
  Little House in the Big Woods is a children's novel by Laura Ingalls Wilder and was published in 1932. This book is the first of the series of books known as the Little House series....
  
  
• Romeo & Juliet
  Romeo and Juliet
  Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage lovers.Romeo and Juliet belongs to a...
  
  
• Treasure Island
  Treasure Island
  Treasure Island is an adventure novel by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson, narrating a tale of "pirates and buried gold". First published as a book on May 23, 1883, it was originally serialized in the children's magazine Young Folks between 1881–82 under the title Treasure Island; or, the...
  
  
• Afternoon of the Elves
• Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile
• Hmong Tapestry: Voices from the Cloth
  Hmong textile art
  Hmong textile art consists of textile arts traditionally practiced by Hmong people. Closely related to practices of other ethnic minorities in China, the embroidery consists of bold geometric designs often realized in bright, contrasting colors...
  
  - Tour

1996/97 (10th anniversary season)

• Peter Pan
  Peter and Wendy
  Peter and Wendy, published in 1911, is the novelisation by J. M. Barrie of his most famous play Peter Pan; or, the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up...
  
  
• Caddie Woodlawn
• The Best Christmas Pageant Ever
• To Kill a Mockingbird
• Alice Through the Looking-Glass
  Through the Looking-Glass
  Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There is a work of literature by Lewis Carroll . It is the sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland...
  
  
• Island of the Blue Dolphins
  Island of the Blue Dolphins
  Island of the Blue Dolphins is a 1960 American children's novel written by Scott O'Dell. The story of a young girl stranded for years on an island off the California coast, it is based on the true story of Juana Maria, a Nicoleño Indian left alone for 18 years on San Nicolas Island in the 19th...
  
  
• Green Eggs & Ham
  Green Eggs and Ham
  Green Eggs and Ham is a best-selling and critically acclaimed book by Dr. Seuss, first published on August 12, 1960. As of 2001, according to Publishers Weekly, it was the fourth-best-selling English-language children's book of all time....
  
  
• Sweet Chariot
  Harriet Tubman
  Harriet Tubman Harriet Tubman Harriet Tubman (born Araminta Harriet Ross; (1820 – 1913) was an African-American abolitionist, humanitarian, and Union spy during the American Civil War. After escaping from slavery, into which she was born, she made thirteen missions to rescue more than 70 slaves...
  
  - Tour

1997/98

• The Nightingale
• Zink: The Myth. The Legend. The Zebra
• The Christmas Angel
• Tuck Everlasting
  Tuck Everlasting
  Tuck Everlasting is a fantasy children's novel by Natalie Babbitt. It was published in 1975. The book explores the concept of immortality and the reasons why it might not be as desirable as it appears to be. It has sold over two million copies and has been called a classic of modern children's...
  
  
• The Phantom Tollbooth
  The Phantom Tollbooth
  The Phantom Tollbooth is a children's adventure novel and modern fairy tale published in 1961, written by Norton Juster and illustrated by Jules Feiffer. It tells the story of a bored young boy named Milo who unexpectedly receives a magic tollbooth one afternoon and, having nothing better to do,...
  
  
• Thumbelina
  Thumbelina
  "Thumbelina" is a literary fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen first published by C. A. Reitzel on 16 December 1835 in Copenhagen, Denmark with "The Naughty Boy" and "The Traveling Companion" in the second installment of Fairy Tales Told for Children. "Thumbelina" is about a tiny girl and...
  
  
• Wilkommen to Wisconsin
  German American
  German Americans are citizens of the United States of German ancestry and comprise about 51 million people, or 17% of the U.S. population, the country's largest self-reported ancestral group...
  
  - Tour

1998/99

• Charlotte's Web
  Charlotte's Web
  Charlotte's Web is an award-winning children's novel by acclaimed American author E. B. White, about a pig named Wilbur who is saved from being slaughtered by an intelligent spider named Charlotte. The book was first published in 1952, with illustrations by Garth Williams.The novel tells the story...
  
  
• The Dream Thief
• The Homecoming, a Christmas Story
• Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry
  Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry
  Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry is a 1976 children's novel by Mildred D. Taylor. The novel won the 1977 Newbery Medal. Its sequel, Let the Circle Be Unbroken, was released in 1981. It also has a prequel in 1975, Song of the Trees...
  
  
• Tom Sawyer
  The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
  The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain is an 1876 novel about a young boy growing up along the Mississippi River. The story is set in the Town of "St...
  
  
• Frog and Toad (Forever)
  Frog and Toad
  Frog and Toad are the main characters in a series of easy-reader children's books, written and illustrated by Arnold Lobel.Each book contains five simple, often humorous, sometimes poignant, short stories chronicling the exploits of a frog and his friend, a toad, simply named Frog and Toad...
  
  
• The Irish Chord
  Celtic music in the United States
  Irish, Scottish music and Welsh Music have long been a major part of American music, at least as far back as the 18th century. Beginning in the 1960s, performers like the Clancy Brothers became stars in the Irish music scene, which dates back to at least the colonial era, when many Irish...
  
  - Tour

1999-2000

• James and the Giant Peach
• Selkie
  Selkie
  Selkies are mythological creatures that are found in Faroese, Icelandic, Irish, and Scottish folklore....
  
  
• The Little Drummer Boy
• A Wrinkle in Time
  A Wrinkle in Time
  A Wrinkle in Time is a science fantasy novel by Madeleine L'Engle, first published in 1962. The story revolves around a young girl whose father, a government scientist, has gone missing after working on a mysterious project called a tesseract. The book won a Newbery Medal, Sequoyah Book Award, and...
  
  
• Swiss Family Robinson
• 10 Minutes till Bedtime!
• A Woman Called Truth - Tour

2000/01

• Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing
• Number the Stars
  Number the Stars
  Number the Stars is a work of historical fiction about the Holocaust of the Second World War by award-winning author Lois Lowry. The story centers around ten-year-old Annemarie Johansen, who lived in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1943 and was caught up in the events surrounding the rescue of the Danish...
  
  
• The Best Christmas Pageant Ever
• The Great Gilly Hopkins
  The Great Gilly Hopkins
  -Plot summary:Gilly Hopkins is going to yet another foster home in Thompson Park, Maryland, with her social worker, Miss Ellis. At 11 years of age, she has spent the better part of her life being bounced from one set of foster parents to the next...
  
  
• Arthur: The Boy who Would be King
  Le Morte d'Arthur
  Le Morte d'Arthur is a compilation by Sir Thomas Malory of Romance tales about the legendary King Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, and the Knights of the Round Table...
  
  
• Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse
• The Sacred Hoop - Tour

2001/02 (15th anniversary season)

• The Boxcar Children
  The Boxcar Children
  The Boxcar Children is a children's literary franchise originally created and written by American writer and first-grade school teacher, Gertrude Chandler Warner. Today, the series includes well over 100 titles...
  
  
• The Witch of Blackbird Pond
  The Witch of Blackbird Pond
  The Witch of Blackbird Pond is a children's historical novel by American author Elizabeth George Speare, published in 1958. The story takes place in late-17th century New England...
  
  
• A Little House Christmas
• Einstein: Hero of the Mind - Tour
• J. R. R. Tolkien
  J. R. R. Tolkien
  John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College,...
  
  's The Hobbit
  The Hobbit
  The Hobbit, or There and Back Again, better known by its abbreviated title The Hobbit, is a fantasy novel and children's book by J. R. R. Tolkien. It was published on 21 September 1937 to wide critical acclaim, being nominated for the Carnegie Medal and awarded a prize from the New York Herald...
  
  
• Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel
  Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel
  Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel is a classic children's book by Virginia Lee Burton, the author and illustrator of the Caldecott Medal-winning The Little House...
  
  

2002/03

• Beverly Cleary
  Beverly Cleary
  Beverly Cleary is an American author. Educated at colleges in California and Washington, she worked as a librarian before writing children's books. Cleary has written more than 30 books for young adults and children. Some of her best-known characters are Henry Huggins, Ribsy, Beatrice Quimby, her...
  
  's The Mouse and the Motorcycle
  The Mouse and the Motorcycle
  The Mouse and the Motorcycle is a children's novel written by Beverly Cleary and published in 1965.- Plot summary :Ralph is a mouse who lives in the run-down Mountain View Inn, a battered resort hotel in the Sierra Nevada of California. Ralph longs for a life of danger and speed, wishing to get...
  
  
• Stephen Crane
  Stephen Crane
  Stephen Crane was an American novelist, short story writer, poet and journalist. Prolific throughout his short life, he wrote notable works in the Realist tradition as well as early examples of American Naturalism and Impressionism...
  
  's The Red Badge of Courage
  The Red Badge of Courage
  The Red Badge of Courage is a war novel by American author Stephen Crane . Taking place during the American Civil War, the story is about a young private of the Union Army, Henry Fleming, who flees from the field of battle. Overcome with shame, he longs for a wound—a "red badge of courage"—to...
  
  
• The Little Match Girl's Christmas Gift
  The Little Match Girl
  The Little Match Girl is a short story by Danish poet and author Hans Christian Andersen. The story is about a dying child's dreams and hope, and was first published in 1845. It has been adapted to various media including animated film, and a television musical.-Plot summary:On a cold New Year’s...
  
  
• A Midnight Cry
  Underground Railroad
  The Underground Railroad was an informal network of secret routes and safe houses used by 19th-century black slaves in the United States to escape to free states and Canada with the aid of abolitionists and allies who were sympathetic to their cause. The term is also applied to the abolitionists,...
  
  
• Treasure Island
• The Magic Mrs. Piggle Wiggle
  The Magic Mrs. Piggle Wiggle
  The Magic Mrs. Piggle Wiggle is a musical based on the Mrs. Piggle Wiggle books by Betty MacDonald. The books, music & lyrics are by Chad Henry.The musical was first adapted by the Children's Theatre Company in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 2004....
  
  
• Hmong Tapestry: Voices from the Cloth - Tour

2003/04

• The BFG
  The BFG
  The BFG is a children's book written by Roald Dahl and illustrated by Quentin Blake, first published in 1982. The book was an expansion of a story told in Danny, the Champion of the World, an earlier Dahl book...
  
  
• Bridge to Terabithia
• The Best Christmas Pageant Ever
• Holes
  Holes (novel)
  Holes is a Newbery Medal-winning novel by Louis Sachar. It was adapted into a screenplay for the 2003 film by Walt Disney Pictures. In 2006, Sachar published Small Steps, a companion novel featuring one of the characters from Holes.-Plot:...
  
  
• The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
  The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
  The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is a fantasy novel for children by C. S. Lewis. Published in 1950 and set circa 1940, it is the first-published book of The Chronicles of Narnia and is the best known book of the series. Although it was written and published first, it is second in the series'...
  
  
• Miss Nelson is Missing!
  Miss Nelson is Missing!
  "Miss Viola Swamp" is styled as "the meanest substitute teacher in the whole world", in three children's picture books by Harry Allard and James Marshall, entitled Miss Nelson is Missing!, Miss Nelson is Back, and Miss Nelson Has a Field Day....
  
  
• Two Donuts: Pepito's Adventures in Cuate-Malo - Tour

2004/05

• Sideways Stories From Wayside School
  Sideways Stories From Wayside School
  The Sideways Stories From Wayside School series is a popular series of 3 books by Louis Sachar. Sideways Stories From Wayside School, Wayside School is Falling Down and Wayside School Gets A Little Stranger are the three novel-length books...
  
  
• Perseus Bayou (The Search for the Cajun Madusa)
• A Christmas Story
  A Christmas Story
  A Christmas Story is a 1983 American Christmas comedy film based on the short stories and semi-fictional anecdotes of author and raconteur Jean Shepherd, including material from his books In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash, and Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories. It was directed by Bob Clark...
  
  
• The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle
  The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle
  The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle is a young adult historical fiction novel by the American author Avi that was published in 1990. It takes place during the transatlantic crossing of a ship from England to America in the 19th century. The book chronicles the evolution of the title character...
  
  
• Honk!
  Honk!
  Honk! is a musical adaptation of the Hans Christian Andersen story The Ugly Duckling, incorporating a message of tolerance. The book and lyrics are by Anthony Drewe and music is by George Stiles...
  
  
• Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type
  Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type
  Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type is an award-winning children's book by Doreen Cronin. Illustrated by Betsy Lewin, the Simon and Schuster book tells the story of Farmer Brown's cows, who find an old typewriter in the barn and proceed to write letters to Farmer Brown, listing various...
  
  
• And Then They Came for Me (Remembering the World of Anne Frank) - Tour

2005/06

• Ramona Quimby
• The Shakespeare Stealer
  The Shakespeare Stealer
  The Shakespeare Stealer is a 1998 young adult novel, written by Gary Blackwood. The novel is a historical fiction novel, and takes place in Elizabethan England. It was an ALA Notable Children's Book in 1999.-Plot summary:...
  
  
• The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus
  The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus
  The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus is a 1902 children's book, written by L. Frank Baum and illustrated by Mary Cowles Clark.-Infancy, Youth, Motivation:...
  
  
• Smoldering Fires
• Tom Sawyer
• Seussical
  Seussical
  is a musical by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty based on the books of Dr. Seuss that debuted on Broadway in 2000. The play's story is a rather complex amalgamation of many of Seuss's most famous books. After a Broadway run, the production spawned two US national tours and a UK tour...
  
  
• Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters - Tour

2006/07 (20th anniversary season)

• Esperanza Rising
  Esperanza Rising
  Esperanza Rising is a 1000novel written by Pam Muñoz Ryan. Set during the time of the American Great Depression, it examines the plight of the Mexican farmworkers as they struggle to adapt and survive in the United States. This book has received many accolades, including the Pura Belpre...
  
  
• Bunnicula
  Bunnicula
  Bunnicula is a children's book series written by James Howe about a vampire bunny that sucks the juice out of vegetables. It is also the name of the first book in the series, published 1979 .The story is centered on the Monroe family and their pets and is told from the perspective of their dog...
  
  
• A Christmas Story
• The Giver
  The Giver
  The Giver is a 1993 soft science fiction novel by Lois Lowry. It is set in a society which is at first presented as a utopian society and gradually appears more and more dystopian. The novel follows a boy named Jonas through the twelfth year of his life...
  
  
• Green Gables
  Anne of Green Gables
  Anne of Green Gables is a bestselling novel by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery published in 1908. Set in 1878, it was written as fiction for readers of all ages, but in recent decades has been considered a children's book...
  
  
• Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse
• According to Coyote
  Coyote (mythology)
  Coyote is a mythological character common to many Native American cultures, based on the coyote animal. This character is usually male and is generally anthropomorphic although he may have some coyote-like physical features such as fur, pointed ears, yellow eyes, a tail and claws...
  
  - Tour

2007/08

• Hana's Suitcase
  Hana Brady
  Hana Brady was a 13-year old Jewish girl murdered in the Holocaust. She is the subject of the 2002 non-fiction children's book Hana's Suitcase, written by Karen Levine.-Biography:Hana Brady was born in Nové Mesto, Czechoslovakia on May 16, 1931...
  
  
• The Quiltmaker's Gift
• 12 Days - A Milwaukee Christmas
  The Twelve Days of Christmas (song)
  "The Twelve Days of Christmas" is an English Christmas carol that enumerates a series of increasingly grand gifts given on each of the twelve days of Christmas. Although first published in England in 1780, textual evidence may indicate the song is French in origin...
  
  
• The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963
  The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963
  The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963 is a historical fiction book by Christopher Paul Curtis, written in 1995, and republished in 1997. It is about an African American family living in the town of Flint, Michigan who goes to their grandmother's home in Birmingham, Alabama to get Byron to behave, in...
  
  
• Sleeping Beauty
  Sleeping Beauty
  Sleeping Beauty by Charles Perrault or Little Briar Rose by the Brothers Grimm is a classic fairytale involving a beautiful princess, enchantment, and a handsome prince...
  
  
• A Year with Frog and Toad
  A Year with Frog and Toad
  A Year With Frog and Toad is a musical written by brothers Robert and Willie Reale , based on the Frog and Toad children's stories written and illustrated by Arnold Lobel...
  
  
• If You Give a Mouse a Cookie
  If You Give A Mouse A Cookie
  If You Give a Mouse a Cookie is the title of a 1985 book illustrated by Felicia Bond. It is the tenth and best-known book written by Laura Numeroff. Its plot deals with a boy who gives a cookie to a mouse. After eating a cookie, the mouse has some milk. Then he decides to clean his face...
  
  - First Steps
• Ferdinand the Bull
  The Story of Ferdinand
  The Story of Ferdinand is the best known work written by American author Munro Leaf and illustrated by Robert Lawson. The children's book tells the story of a bull who would rather smell flowers than fight in bullfights...
  
  - First Steps/Tour

2008/09

• Gossamer
  Gossamer (novel)
  Gossamer is a novel with elements of both fantasy and realism for young adults by Lois Lowry.- Plot summary :The book's omniscient point of view, Littlest One, affectionately called Littlest, is out on a dark night...
  
  
• Charlotte's Web
• The Happy Elf
  The Happy Elf
  The Happy Elf is a 3D-animated family holiday special, which first aired December 2, 2005 on the NBC television network in the USA. Based on Grammy-winner Harry Connick, Jr.’s original song, The Happy Elf....
  
  
• Witness
  Witness (Novel)
  Witness is a 2001 novel of historical fiction, written by Karen Hesse. It is in first-person narration, though with each new page, a different narrator is used...
  
  
• The Neverending Story
  The Neverending Story
  The Neverending Story is a German fantasy novel by Michael Ende, first published in 1979. The standard English translation, by Ralph Manheim, was first published in 1983...
  
  
• How I Became a Pirate
• Giggle, Giggle, Quack
  Giggle, Giggle, Quack
  Giggle, Giggle, Quack is a children's book by Doreen Cronin. Illustrated by Betsy Lewin, this sequel to Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type tells the story of Farmer Brown's brother Bob, who is farm-sitting for the vacationing Farmer Brown. Farmer Brown leaves a to-do list for Bob, but Duck is able...
  
  - First Steps
• The Dinosaur Play - First Steps
• Lincoln at Gettysburg
  Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America
  Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America written by Garry Wills and published by Simon & Schuster in 1992, won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction and the 1992 National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism....
  
  - Tour
• A Thousand Cranes
  Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes
  Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes is a non-fiction children's book written by American author Eleanor Coerr and published in 1977.This true story is of a girl, Sadako Sasaki, who lived in Hiroshima at the time of the atomic bombing by the United States...
  
  - Tour

2009/10

• Junie B. Jones and a Little Monkey Business
  Junie B. Jones
  Junie B. Jones is a children's book series written by Barbara Park and illustrated by Denise Brunkus. The story is written in Junie B.'s perspective.-Characters:Junie Beatrice "Junie B." Jones...
  
  
• The Best Christmas Pageant Ever
  The Best Christmas Pageant Ever
  The Best Christmas Pageant Ever is a book written by Barbara Robinson in 1972. It tells the story of six delinquent children surnamed Herdman. They go to church for the first time after being told that the church offers snacks...
  
  
• The Thief Lord
  The Thief Lord
  The Thief Lord is a children's novel written by Cornelia Funke. It was published in Germany in 2000 and translated into English by Oliver Latsch in 2002 for The Chicken House, a division of Scholastic publishing company...
  
  
• The Wiz
  The Wiz
  The Wiz: The Super Soul Musical "Wonderful Wizard of Oz" is a musical with music and lyrics by Charlie Smalls and book by William F. Brown. It is a retelling of L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in the context of African American culture. It opened on October 21, 1974 at the Morris A...
  
  
• Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
  Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
  Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, published in 1972, is an ALA Notable Children's Book written by Judith Viorst and illustrated by Ray Cruz. It has also won a George G. Stone Center Recognition of Merit, a Georgia Children's Book Award, and is a Reading Rainbow book...
  
  
• If You Give a Mouse a Cookie - First Steps
• If You Take a Mouse to School - First Steps
• Tomás and the Library Lady
  Tomás and the Library Lady
  Tomás and the Library Lady is a children's picture book written by Mexican-American writer Pat Mora and illustrated by Raúl Colón. Based on a true story, it details the circumstances behind the son of a migrant farm worker during the 1940s in the Midwest United States...
  
  - Tour

2010/11

• Peter Pan and Wendy
  Peter and Wendy
  Peter and Wendy, published in 1911, is the novelisation by J. M. Barrie of his most famous play Peter Pan; or, the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up...
  
  
• My Son Pinocchio
• The Magic Bicycle
• U: BUG: ME
• The Hundred Dresses
  The Hundred Dresses
  The Hundred Dresses is a 1944 children's book by Eleanor Estes, illustrated by Louis Slobodkin.-Plot:The book centers on Wanda Petronski, a poor and friendless Polish-American girl. Her teacher, outwardly kind, puts her in the worst seat in the schoolroom and does not intervene when her...
  
  
• Miss Nelson is Missing!
• Aesop's Fables
  Aesop's Fables
  Aesop's Fables or the Aesopica are a collection of fables credited to Aesop, a slave and story-teller believed to have lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 560 BCE. The fables remain a popular choice for moral education of children today...
  
  - First Steps
• The Little Engine That Could
  The Little Engine That Could
  The Little Engine that Could is a children's story that appeared in the United States of America. The book is used to teach children the value of optimism and hard work...
  
  - First Steps

2011/12

• Seussical
  Seussical
  is a musical by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty based on the books of Dr. Seuss that debuted on Broadway in 2000. The play's story is a rather complex amalgamation of many of Seuss's most famous books. After a Broadway run, the production spawned two US national tours and a UK tour...
  
  "
• Don't Tell Me I Can't Fly"
• Junie B. In Jingle Bells, Batman Smells!"
• A Wrinkle In Time
  A Wrinkle in Time
  A Wrinkle in Time is a science fantasy novel by Madeleine L'Engle, first published in 1962. The story revolves around a young girl whose father, a government scientist, has gone missing after working on a mysterious project called a tesseract. The book won a Newbery Medal, Sequoyah Book Award, and...
  
  "
• Charlie And The Chocolate Factory
  Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
  Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a 1964 children's book by British author Roald Dahl. The story features the adventures of young Charlie Bucket inside the chocolate factory of the eccentric chocolatier, Willy Wonka....
  
  "
• Diary Of A Spider, Worm, And Fly"
• Don't Let The Pigeon Drive The Bus!
  Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!
  Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! is a children's picture book by Mo Willems. Released by Hyperion Press in 2003, it was Willems' first book for children, and received the Caldecott Honor. The plot is about a bus driver who has to leave so he asks the reader to watch the Pigeon. The pigeon tries...
  
  " - First Steps

New play workshops

• A Wrinkle in Time
• The Borrowers
  The Borrowers
  The Borrowers, published in 1952, is the first in a series of children's fantasy novels by English author Mary Norton. The novel and its sequels are about tiny people who live in people's homes and "borrow" things to survive while keeping their existence unknown...
  
  

Reference

• Tour - Multi-cultural assembly tour which performs in elementary and middle schools throughout the Milwaukee area.
• First Steps - Play written specifically for a younger audience, particularly age 3 and up; performed at the Milwaukee Youth Arts Center.