A Mermaids’ Tale

The musical is presented in story theatre form and follows Baums first novel published after his famous ‘Oz’ books with a very contemporary look at a class-room of students presenting an English report a la the kids from the popular Fox-series, ‘Glee’. It is part of the FACT Family Fiction series.

This is a story that brings together the ideas of good and evil which Baum so effectively used in his Oz series, ideas that have generated inspired works of stage and cinema. It involves a teacher who assigns his students a task of reading and reporting on a novel published in 1911, the year their school opened. To the surprise of both the students and teacher the class all choose the same book. As a result, they decide to do an impromptu play and set it in the 21st century in an all singing, all dancing Glee-style production. Everyone, including the teacher and the school custodian participate in the tale of a sea captain who goes under the sea to investigate why “no one who has ever seen a mermaid lived to tell the tale.” Their adventures involve a myriad of classic characters so much associated with Baum’s books of fantasy.