Performance Demonstrations
The Performance Demonstration prices listed are your cost. You are paying approximately 50 percent of the actual cost of the performance. The balance is underwritten by grants and generous donations.
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Study Guides: A Study Guide is provided for each program and will be delivered to your campus coordinator electronically prior to the scheduled performance. These guides provide teachers with supplemental information to integrate into the classroom before and after the program. Curriculum connections are suggested in the study guides that align with the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS).
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Evaluations: Teacher and student evaluations are provided for each program. Evaluation results are reviewed by the Young Audiences of Abilene staff and teaching artists. We welcome your feedback!
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Local Teaching Artists
ACU Opera Company
The World of Opera ... The Music of Disney
ACU Opera Company is back with an updated musical experience! This program challenges children to listen to an extended amount of vocal music, uninterrupted by dialogue. This is beginning opera with familiar songs from Disney movies. The artists are vocal performers studying at Abilene Christian University. There will be a brief introduction and explanation, followed by 32 minutes of uninterrupted music and dance.
Grades: K-6 Curriculum Connections: Music & Theatre Arts
Fee: $400 per performance; $750 for back-to-back performances
Scheduled: By Request
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Key City Brass
Melody and Rhythm
Key City Brass is a brass quintet made up of local music professionals from local universities and schools. From classical music to popular children's songs, this interactive program will teach students what makes brass instruments unique. Come see the "hose-a-phone" and play a game of "Who's got the melody?"
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Key City Brass will also offer a special holiday program for schools scheduling in the month of December.
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Grades: 3-6 Curriculum Connections: Music
Fee: $300 per performance; $550 for back-to-back performances
Scheduled: By Request
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Assorted Nuts
Assorted Nuts
With help from the audience, this improvisational theatre troupe entertains, enlightens, and educates as they weave numerous stories. This group consists of theatre students from local universities under the direction of YAA teaching artist Jenni Harbour.
Grades: K-6 Curriculum Connections: Theatre Arts, Language Arts
Fee: $200 for a single performance
Scheduled: By Request
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Visiting Teaching Artists
Margaret Clauder
September 30 - October 2, 2019
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This storybook character comes to life to teach rhymes to children in a fun and memorable way utilizing puppets, props, and audience volunteers. Children will love the puppets Lamby, Mary, Goosey, Itsy Bitsy, and other friends arriving with Mother Goose.
Grades: Pre K-2 Curriculum Connections: Language Arts, Theatre Arts
Fee: $300 per performance or $550 for back-to-back performances
Reading and Rhyming with Mother Goose!
Soul Street Dance Company
November 13 - 15, 2019
No Bones About It
By tracing the signals from the brain that tell our muscles to stretch and contract, we learn about the science of dance. Combine this with a dance fantasy of how we might move if we had no bones, and you have an energetic program by Soul Street Dance to connect to your health and science curriculum!
When we see dancers perform amazing leaps and bends we often ask, “How do they do that?” The Soul Street dancers present skeletal features such as hinged joints and ball-and-socket joints and demonstrate for the audience ways in which our bodies can accomplish amazing feats by combining bones, muscles, and commands from the brain.
Grades: K-6 Curriculum Connections: Dance/Movement and Science
Fee: $400 per performance or $750 for back-to-back performances
Taking it to the Streets
Catch the excitement as Soul Street Dance demonstrates how street dance has developed and evolved across cultures.
From Brazil’s “Capoiera” to New York’s “Breakdance,” students learn about the varied styles of street dance and discuss the distinctive features and origins of each dance. Be prepared to learn about what can happen when modern street dance meets the classical music of 17th century composer Antonio Vivaldi!
Grades: 3-6
$400 for single performances; $750 for back-to-back performances
Curriculum connections: Dance/Movement and Music
Bernadette Nason
November 19 - 21, 2019
“Happy Thanksgiving!” with Bernadette Nason
This captivating selection of uplifting stories has been gathered in celebration of Thanksgiving! Through themes of kindness and joy, these timeless tales demonstrate the power of gratitude, thoughtfulness, and love.
Ms. Nason is an award-winning artist from England touring the US with programs of delightful stories, adapted from enduring multicultural folklore. Combining creative drama with traditional storytelling, she entertains and educates students, adjusting shows to suit each age group, while reminding them of the lessons contained in every classic story.
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Recommended for K–6
$350 for single performances; $600 for back-to-back performances
Curriculum connections: Language Arts, Social Studies
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Lucas Miller
The Singing Zoologist!
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January 8 - 10, 2020
"Life cycles"
Get your students laughing, singing, and moving while they discover monarch butterfly migrations, tadpole metamorphosis, bluebonnet pollination, and much more!
With unforgettable songs, hilarious puppetry, and dazzling videos, artist Lucas Miller makes science a blast. Touring for over 25 years, this “singing zoologist” has earned a reputation as one of the nation’s finest school presenters. This multimedia, musical bonanza covers a wealth of science TEKS, delighting teachers just as much as students!
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Recommended for K-2
$400 for single performances; $750 for back-to-back performances
Curriculum Connections: Science and Music
"Texas Ecosystems and Adaptations"
Why are some parts of Texas lush forests and other parts dry and dusty? What do animals have to help them survive in these different ecosystems? How do we depend on natural ecosystems?
This multimedia program answers those questions and more as it takes students across our enormous state through Lucas Miller’s hilarious, science-based songs and dazzling footage. Illustrating important earth and life science concepts, your students will laugh, sing and groove while they learn about wetlands, food chains, desert adaptations and much more.
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Recommended for 3-6
$400 for single performances; $750 for back-to-back performances
Curriculum Connections: Science and Music
Hideout Kids
February 3 - 5, 2020
In these performances improvisors act silly, students laugh loudly, and adults watch happily as a new and unique story unfolds based on the suggestions of the students in the audience. “We start with silly fairy tales and then let you help us mess them up. We'll play some improv games along the way and the audience gets to direct our final story!”
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Hideout Kids has won several awards including a Nickelodeon Parent's Choice Award, and Austin Chronicle's - Best Children's Show.
Recommended for K–2, 3-6
$400 for single performances; $750 for back-to back
Curriculum Connections: Language Arts and Theatre Arts
Terrence Taps
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Beat and Rhythm: The Evolution of Tap Dancing!
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Young audiences are guided through the birth, history, and development of the American art form of tap dancing. The evolution of tap dancing is demonstrated through the unique styles and contributions of some of tap’s biggest names. Full of history and humor, this show educates, informs, and entertains!
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Recommended for K-6
$350 for single performances; $600 for back-to-back performances
Curriculum connections: Movement/Dance and Music
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February 10 - 11, 2020
Magik Theatre
Presents: The Kingdom of Texas!
Perfect for Texas History Month!
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March 3 - 5, 2020
For more than 100 years Texas was a Spanish Colony known as “The Kingdom of Texas” – that’s just one of many Texas facts in this crash course in Texas lore. Including stories like the Legend of the Bluebonnets, the tale of Pecos Bill, and of course, Davy Crockett and the saga of the Alamo, this show is sure to make your students experts in all things Texas.
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Recommended for K–6
$400 for single performances; $750 for back-to-back performances.
Curriculum connections: Language Arts, Theatre Arts, Social Studies
Coming Attractions
After careful consideration of the health and safety of our participants, the Abilene Cultural Affairs Council and the National Center for Children’s Illustrated Literature have decided to postpone the 2020 CALF and corresponding Loren Long art exhibition until June 10-12, 2021.
June 2021
An arts-integration Professional Development opportunity for classroom teachers inspired by the work of Loren Long!
