Through drama, the spoken word, and music from Page to Stage to Screen is an intergenerational celebration and affirmation of life through theater. This program, presented by Leslie Elias, Director of Grumbling Gryphons Traveling Children’s Theater, now celebrating 41 years of educational theater education and touring invites you to take part in an inspirational  journey of drama, poetry and music performed by an intergenerational cast.

 

This program reminds us of the power of language, rhythms and cadences that enliven our minds and the hearts. Through Leslie Elias’s dramatic work with elders, children and young adults, poems, songs and stories spring to life through masks, music and collaborative performance. This will include a dramatization of  Edward Lear’s The Owl and The Pussycat, poems by E.E. Cummings, Langston Hughes among others. In addition, short films directed by Leslie Elias, in creative collaboration with Ben Willis, an award winning filmmaker and editor. Costumes and masks by Ellen Moon will be shown.  This program aims to delight, inspire and encourage the muse within us all!

 

Leslie Elias, director of Grumbling Gryphons Traveling Children’s Theater is a playwright, actress, storyteller and theater director who has been teaching drama in schools, theaters and public venues for over 41 years.  In 2018, Connecticut Office on the Arts awarded her the Connecticut Arts Hero Award. She is the recipient of Northwest Connecticut Arts Council 2018 Culture Max Award for Arts Educator. Additionally, she is recognized as both Teaching and Performing Artist with Connecticut Office of the Arts. Ms. Elias has been an Artist-in-Residence in many schools throughout the United States.  Under her artistic direction, Grumbling Gryphons won the 2003 Connecticut Governor’s Arts Award.