PAST PROJECTS
BEAR STATE OF MIND
written by Ashley Edwards
directed by Christopher Parks and Kassie Misiewitz
produced by Tricycle Theatre for Youth
Productions: 2013, 2014, 2017, 2024
Walton Arts Center
Fayetteville, Arkansas
Bear State of Mind is an immersive, experiential TYA production set at a campground deep in the Arkansas Ozarks. Developed with playwright Ashley Edwards and Trike Artistic Director Kassie Misiewitz, the audience is invited to gather around the campfire and lend their voices to the story of a little toy bear who gets lost in the woods while searching for his human family. Blending found-object puppetry with interactive prompts, the play invites audiences into a structured yet naturally flowing experience—reminiscent of the imaginative, pretend play children engage in every day.
SHOW OF HANDS
written and directed by Christopher Parks
2024 Tour
Children's Theatre of Charlotte
Charlotte, North Carolina
After a worldwide pandemic and two years of attending school virtually, students and teachers have forgotten how to behave towards one another. Fed up, the adults decide to quit, and the students are faced with a dilemma: go back to remote learning or figure out how to make school a better environment for everyone. Commissioned by the Charlotte Mecklenburg School System, Show of Hands is an immersive play where the audience portray the students of the school they now run. At first it seems great in this quixotic reality where kids make the rules, but soon the children learn that they must find ways to respect one another if they're ever going to survive.
animation by Tom La
Dream Within a Dream:
The Spirit of Poe
book and lyrics by Christopher Parks
directed by Christopher Parks
produced by Jason Parrish
Florida Repertory Theatre
Fort Myers, Florida
After the success of two year-long tours, The Odyssey Experience (2013) and Journey to Oz (2015), Florida Rep commissioned a new experiential piece based on the life of Edgar Allen Poe. One part drama, more parts silliness, a troupe of performers bring the beautiful and macabre to life through song and dramatic performance underscored by classic vaudevillian piano.
music by Josh Totora
"In 1809, Edgar Allan Poe was born. It was a bloody ordeal, as most births usually are. This part of the story is not for the faint of heart, as what emerged from this woman’s body was a wailing, living creature, apparently the infant version of Poe himself!"
A Christmas Carol Experiential
written and directed by Christopher Parks
2019, 2022
Long Island Children's Museum
Garden City, New York
Combining experiential immersion with puppetry and innovative theatrical storytelling, A Christmas Carol Experiential invites young audience members to go on an imaginative journey through the mind of Ebenezer Scrooge. It's a playful, whimsical retelling of the classical Dickens story which focusses on how each of our own unique perspectives of events guide us to react to what and who we experience day to day. As such, our protagonist comes to understand that seeing the world through different eyes can be the most powerful catalyst to finding joy within ourselves and spreading it to others.
produced by James Packard
Last Stop on Market Street
written by Gloria Bond Clunie
directed by Christopher Parks
World Premiere 2018
Children's Theatre of Charlotte
Children's Theatre of Charlotte Artistic Director, Adam Burke, conceived of a program intended to promote kindness; The Kindness Project. In 2017, several playwrights were commissioned to write adaptations of books which focussed on Kindness, including Last Stop on Market Street authored by Matt de la Pēna and illustrated by Christian Robinson. Experiential Theater Company's Christopher Parks was commissioned to write the book and lyrics for The Invisible Boy, but was also blessed with the opportunity to direct this moving adaptation by Gloria Bond Clunie. This is also the first project Parks teamed up with fellow EXP company members Rahsheem Shabazz and Ron Lee McGill.
Charlotte, North Carolina
Fables
written and directed by Christopher Parks
produced by Larry Capo and Maureen Heffernan
music by Josh Totora
Aesop's
Young Audiences of NJ & Eastern PA
An interactive production where audience members are invited to celebrate storytelling and discuss character development in the context of Aesop's famous stories of morals and the pursuit common sense decision-making. Commissioned by Young Audiences a a part of their character education initiative, the play follows four friends in conflict with one another who act out some of the best-known fables to illustrate their frustrations and work out their issues. A live musician plays all the music and creates all the sound effects as the actors use items they find in their barn to tell the stories of The Tortoise and the Hare, The Lion and the Mouse, The Boy Who Cried Wolf, and a musical version of The Ant and the Grasshopper..
Princeton, New Jersey
ADVENTURES
THE
PERSEUS
OF
written & directed by Christopher Parks
McCarter Theatre Center
Princeton, New Jersey
puppet design by
John F. Murdolo & Christopher Parks
The Adventures of Perseus brings live actors together with large-scale puppets. It has been seen by more than a hundred thousand youth and family audience members since it originally started toured as a McCarter Theatre production in 1998, where it was produced annually until 2013. It then toured under the Young Audiences banner from 2014-2016 and has since been a part of the Experiential repertoire of shows which travels to performing arts centers and schools throughout the New Jersey/New York area. The production employs marionettes, shadow puppets, hand puppets, Bunraku puppets, and Pageant puppets (Zeus is seventeen feet tall!).
