Children’s Theatre Tour Spring 2025

Performance Description

Message from the Playwright:

Splitting Hares is a heartfelt, fast-paced, ensemble comedy. It makes Aesop’s classic archetypal characters more endearing by giving them larger than life personalities. It still captures the moral lessons instilled by fables; while also acknowledging the complex world a younger audience will be applying those lesson to. The humor is charming and witty but never moves out of the grasp of a younger audience. Despite the characters becoming more rounded, the play doesn’t betray or insult its source material. It seeks to honor the intention these stories were created with while making them applicable to a nuanced and varied world.

Director’s Note:

With the rise of children’s accessibility to technology and the vast amount of information available on the internet, it is more important than ever to make children aware of context and nuance in what they read and hear. Splitting Hares demonstrates the importance of questioning rumors and information you hear, practicing critical thinking when deciding your perception of situations, and being kind to people because you never know what is going on behind the gossip surrounding them.

Childhood is a formative age where people begin to feel the need to label and define themselves. We hope to transform this process into one that opens children’s eyes to all of the possibilities of who they can become- including using their percieved ‘weaknesses’ as a superpower. In this, they also learn the value of teamwork and appreciating the qualities that make their peers special. What makes characters different can often be what makes them able to help each other.

Logistics

• This show is best suited for grades k-3rd (we may make exceptions for middle school students)
• Our maximum audience size is 150. This is also dependent on the size of the space, age of students and where the performance is being held. The performance is roughly 35 minutes long. There is an option to include a 10 minute talkback at no additional charge.
• We ask for no sound interruptions for the duration of the performance unless it is requested by the performers.
• We need access to the space at least 15 minutes prior to the performance start time for setup and 15 mins after for breakdown.
  Please note that our tour will be able to travel to schools no more than 30 minutes away from Montclair State University.