Menlo Drama is presenting The Old Man and The Old Moon, a song-filled folktale featuring imaginative stagecraft, shadow puppetry, exceptional storytelling and pure theater magic. Performances run Friday, February 8 at 7:30 p.m., Saturday, February 9 at 2:00 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, February 10 at 5:00 p.m. in Florence Moore Auditorium at Menlo School, 50 Valparaiso Avenue, Atherton.
Tickets are $10 for adults, $5 for students, available for advance purchase at store.menloschool.org. Tickets may also be available at the door one hour before each performance. This production is suitable for all ages.
PigPen Theatre Company’s The Old Man and The Old Moon tells the tale of an Old Man whose duty in life is to fill the leaky moon with liquid light. This fantastical tale takes the Old Man on a quest to find his wife who is traveling to the end of the world searching for the source of a tune she hears calling for her. When the Old Man abandons his post in search of his wife, the moon grows dark, and the world tips toward chaos. Only on this epic, folk music-filled journey can he and the world be reconciled between the pulling tides of love and duty, resistance and acceptance, permanence and change.
Director of Creative Arts and Upper School Drama Steven Minning is thrilled to be staging The Old Man and The Old Moon as his sixteenth mainstage production for Menlo School. “When I first saw the show in New York, I was struck by its creativity, its storytelling and its heart. It is guaranteed to gently pluck at the heartstrings.”
What makes this show unique and challenging is that it must be both simple and extraordinary at once, “where a simple story and homespun theatrical devices are transformed into something extraordinarily beautiful,” explains Minning. Indeed, the fable is told through shadow puppetry, movement, folk music and light, on a simple and yet dramatically beautiful stage.
Continuing its tradition of philanthropy through Menlo Drama Gives Back, this production of will benefit Music & Memory, a nonprofit organization that works to bring personalized music into the lives of the elderly, infirm and memory-impaired, vastly improving their quality of life.
Photo by Steven Minning; pictured is Ethan Bernheim as The Old Man and the company of The Old Man and The Old Moon
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