PSUGA Players Bring South Asian Folk Tales to Life in Campus Production

Penn State Greater Allegheny Theatre 282 class, under the direction of Dr. Jay Breckenridge, Professor of Theatre Arts, performed an exciting three-day presentation of South Asian Folk Tales, stories from India and Pakistan. The performances were held December 6 through December 8, 2007, in the Ostermayer Room of the campus? Student Community Center. The program, interspersed with songs and dances performed by the students in the Dance 100 class (Music and Dance of India), included four folk tales: ?Wali Dad,? ?The Rat Who Made One Bargain Too Many,? ?Shakuntala,? and ?Tootoony Pie.?

Theatre 282 is a hands-on training course in which students work on all aspects of preparing a production. Each fall it is presented as Children?s Theatre, based on folk tales from various cultures.  This year the campus has its international focus on South Asia. For these folk tale productions, the students act as narrators, walls, props, and scenery. The actors begin preparing each story by creating physical actions for each scene using pantomime, followed later by dialog and narration. The audience members are encouraged to use their imaginations to help create the visual elements of the stories.

The Penn State Greater Allegheny theatre class has performed for hundreds of local school children, often in coordination with the PEPP program.