Living and Loving the Prairies!

Our Prairie Life tour is almost wrapping up and we have been having an amazing time on the prairies. Every Gym has a basketball net to make sure we stay in shape.

Avery got to try Fried Bannock in Onion Lake. Shout out to Brenda for making it special for our visit!

The Grade 8’s in Provost, AB gave Ed, Coire and Taliesin a run for the money in a spirited game of dodgeball. And we stopped for a quick picture in front of Biggar’s famous  sign, “New York is Big, But This is Biggar". A real quick picture, we were coming home in –41 windchill that afternoon!!!

 

Next week we were at Coleville, SK and we were interviewed by some of the older kids for their school newspaper! Afterwards, we drove to Drumheller, “land of the dinosaurs” and stopped to visit Rex.  Can you see Ed and I on his toes???

We went for a beautiful walk across the Frozen Jumbo Lake in Loon Lake, Sk, and met the Lumberjack in Goodsoil, SK,

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Then we headed far up north to Ile-a-La-Crosse and used a real ice road to get back to Beauval!

And while enjoying a few days off in Saskatoon, Coire and Taliesin and I got a chance to learn how to curl, being taught by the fabulous Annie McQueen!

Prairie winter is letting up and we hope to wrap up this tour in t-shirts! But we made sure to keep our winter coats in the trunk of the car. After all, “if you don’t like the weather, just wait ten minutes and it will change!!!”

Flapper Pie

This is one of my favorite recipes of all time and as it turns out has a bit of a prairie historical context as well! This pie doesn't require a lot of fancy ingredients and it always seems magical to me how so much YUM! value can be found in such simplicity.

Some of my other favorite prairie recipes include cattails, butter tarts and Saskatoon berry cereal. What? You've never heard of Saskatoon berry cereal? It's Saskatoon berries in a bowl with milk and sugar ;)
Do you have a favorite prairie recipe?

Classroom activities:
Share your favorite prairie recipe. Copy it out at home and share it with the class. Draw a picture of your dish and compile them into a classroom cookbook.
Look up any unfamiliar words and terms (flapper, reserved...) and use them in your weekly spelling bee!
Make a recipe as a class - try home made ice cream (put ice cream mix into a ziplock bag, inside another bag of ice cubes and shake, shake shake!). use the same method to make butter like a pioneer! What were common ingredients on the prairies in the 20's? What did they consider a decident treat? (you would be surprised to know how long KD has been around).

Flapper Pie

Ingredients

(1 servings)

1 1/4 c Graham wafer crumbs
1/4 c Sugar, granulated
1/2 ts Cinnamon
1/4 c Butter;melted

FILLING:
1/4 c Sugar, granulated
3 tb Cornstarch
2 c Milk
2 Egg yolks;lightly beaten
1 ts Vanilla

MERINGUE:
2 Egg whites
1/4 ts Cream of tartar
2 tb Sugar, granulated

Instructions

"In eastern Canada, this recipe was called Graham Wafer Cream Pie, but westerners knew it as Flapper Pie. ... Cream pies like butterscotch, banana, cream and coconut cream were favorites of this decade and restaurants (called cafes in the West) always had cream pies on their menus."

Combine crumbs, sugar and cinnaomn; blend in butter. Set 1/4 c aside. Press remainder onto bottom and sides of 9 inch pie plate. Bake in 375F oven for 8 minutes; cool. Filling: In saucepan, mix sugar with cornstarch; blend in milk. Cook over medium heat, stirring, until boiling; stir a little into yolks, then retUrn to the saucepan. Cook over low heat, stirring, for 2 minutes or until thickened. Remove from heat; add vanilla and cool slightly. Pour into pie crust. Meringue: Beat egg whites with cream of tartar till soft peaks form; gradually beat in sugar until stiff peaks form. Spread over filling, sealing to crust. Top with reserved crumbs. Bake in 400F oven for 5 minutes or till lightly browned. Cool to room temperature, about 4 hours.

Saskatoon Performances

Shows have begun in Saskatoon at the Refinery! We are excited to present this entertaining production to the public as a part of our Children's Theatre Season.

We hope you will have a chance to come and check out the show for your school! We still have a few opeings for Saskatoon and area schools in March and these performances are the perfect opportunity to preview the show.

Don't have any kids to bring along? No worries - our audience is made up of people of all ages and this show entertains them all!

Running Back to Saskatoon

Well folks, week 3 of our Prairie Life tour is coming to an end. We are all tucked in in Bow Island, AB after a visit to Pinto the Pinto Bean.

And tomorrow we will give one more show for Bow Island elementary and we are on our way home to do some weekend shows at The Refinery in Saskatoon that are open to the  public.

After a trip to the Rolling Pin Bakery in Bow Island though! We are really looking forward to it (and bringing home treats for a certain puppeteer back home)!

We have been having an amazing time out on the road and until today have been enjoying good weather and good highway conditions.

We were really sad to have to miss our show in McLean the staff and kids seemed so excited to have us and we hope that we can make it back there sometime this year.

We have had a chance to meet so many interesting people across the prairies. Our favorite surprise so far was Old George’s in Whitewood, SK where we we were invited to explore his old pioneer village an amazing hidden gem just off of Highway 1. If you are traveling through that way be sure to stop and check it out. We saw more of our prairie history in his old 1882 mansion turned antique museum than we had ever seen in our lives!

Someone you may recognize from last year’s Munsch to the Max was able to meet up with us in Moose Jaw, SK all the way from London, England!

We had a lot of fun telling her about all the schools she had made it out to last year and filling her in on our adventures!

From there it was on to Alberta, where we passed the World’s Largest Teepee in Medicine Hat, AB

We sang Oh Canada along with the Alberta schools we visited

And Avery was frightened yet again by the giant cornstalks in Taber, AB!

We are looking forward to being home for a few nights and especially looking forward to seeing everyone out at the Refinery this weekend!!

I hope Claudette isn’t predicting snow for tomorrow’s drive home.

Prairie Berry Pie!

Create a piece of prairie berry pie!

What you need:
Colored construction paper (brown/tan, red, blue and purple)
scissors
glue

Optional:
newspaper

1. Cut out a triangle or pie shape (brown/tan paper).

2. Cut out circles and/or strawberry shapes of other colors to create blueberries, Saskatoon berries, raspberries and strawberries.

3. Glue berries to pie crust.

4. For older students have them write one thing they like about the prairies on each berry (swimming, fishing, big blue skies, northern lights...) before gluing.

5. Older students could also use a piece of rolled up newspaper as a piece of crust. Glue the rolled up paper along the edge and paint brown for a crispy crust!

Win a cultural gift basket!

A Prairie Life is funded in part by The Saskatchewan Arts Board's Culture On The Go program. They want your feedback on our show and when you answer their survey you will be entered to win a cultural gift basket filled with Saskatchewan talent including books, films and CD's.! Enter Here.

Help make programming such as this available in the future by inviting municipal, provincial, and federal decision-makers to your performance. A listing of provincial MLAs is available at http://www.legassembly.sk.ca, and federal MPs are listed at http://www.parl.gc.ca.

First Post From The Road

Here we are close to finishing up our 2nd week on tour in the Country Squire Inn in Fort Qu’Appelle, SK.

We have been having a lot of fun out on the road and meeting a lot of amazing kids!

We signed autographs in Kelvington, SK

Taught Coire and Talisen about Rural Municipalities in Duck Lake, SK

Ate barley soup in Wynyard, SK. Don’t worry, we made sure to take some back to the hotel for Soup Dog (the restaurant had a “no dogs allowed” policy).

Avery encountered the giant wheat stalks in Rosthern, SK

(We couldn’t convince him that they weren’t real)

… and listened to trains in Ituna, SK

We have loved driving across the eastern part of the prairies and Coire and Talisen are beginning to understand why we can watch our dogs run away for days out here. All of the kids have been fantastic and Soup Dog loves having them howl along with him. We have appreciated all of the hospitality we have received in every town and school we get to; as well as the great food in the small cafés!

Teacher Support Added

Our teacher package is online here!

and a poster on the right------

as well as our post show survey here.

So excited for the tour to be underway. The performers are wonderfully talented actors, puppeteers and musicians - that's what I call a triple threat (or should I say treat?).

Performance Day 1

I can't beleive my last post was two weeks ago already! We have been hard at work bringing the show together and are quite excited about performing it this afternoon!
The show has really come to life with puppets, costumes, funny hats and celebrity appearances (Justin Beaver and Baby Gaga make me laugh every time).

More content soon as we upload the teachers packages!

Rehearsal Day One

Here we are at the end of our first rehearsal day and all I can say is 'ye-haw!' The cast is wonderful, the script is fun and the puppets are gorgeous. What more could a director ask for?

With the help of these three talented performers this show is going to be a whole lot of fun! Think the Muppets meet the Kids in The Hall...or perhaps that dates me too much. Think Justin Bever meets Avery Hansomansing - we are and we can't wait for you to see it for yourselves. Only two weeks until our first performance!
This is going to be a fun rehearsal process :) Thanks to everyone at Wide Open and the cast and crew of A Prairie Life.

Oh... you can now download a poster to promote your performance! The link is over there on the right or here. See you soon!

The Night Before Rehearsals

Twas the Night Before Rehearsals and all through the hall
not a creature was stirring, no one was on call.

The scripts were all hung by the puppet theatre with care
in hopes that the actors soon would be there.

The puppets were nestled all snug in their beds,
while visions of children danced in their heads.

I think you get the picture. We are all ready for rehearsals to begin tomorrow. The rehearsal props are laid out and the tables are set for the first read through of the script. We are thrilled to have Ed Mendez back on board for his second Wide Open tour. Our two new performers have arrived safe and sound from their long journey to Saskatoon. We welcome Coire and Taliesen to the Prairie Life cast and can't wait to get to know them better in the coming weeks. What wonderful weather to great them! Hopefully this will be getting the 'worst over with' as far as the weather is concerned. Here's hoping them safe travels on the tour and a great show!

But I heard them exclaim as they drove out of sight, "Happy Tour to all and to all a good night!"

Hard at Work

The puppet workshop is buzzing with excitement as we put together A Prairie Life. Puppets, props, costumes and backdrops are being assembled for the show. Rehearsals start next week and we have cleared the decks! This included putting away our last show The Night Before Christmas and our other recent puppet building extravaganza Bam (for another company's production). The Alphabet is being constructed and the set is under construction.

We are extremely grateful for the generous support of The Sasakatchewan Arts Board and Cameco for making this tour possible. While Wide Open loves to create unique shows for our audiences they are quite costly to put together. This is also our first contract with CAEA actors. There were allot of new hoops to jump through but we know you will be delighted when you see the talented group that we have put together.

Here you can see Erin Crowley, our stage manager, keeping us on track as Aubrey builds puppets in the background. Watch out for that hot glue Aubrey!

Wide Open's school tour 2011

Wide Open is thrilled to present A Prairie Life an all new puppet showbased on the best selling books by Jo Bannatyne-Cugnet, illustrated by Yvette Moore (A Prairie Year, Heartland, a Prairie sampler and A Prairie Alphabet). This production will be our eighth year touring to schools across Saskatchewan and Alberta. This one hour show for Kindergarten to grade 6 features 30 of our outstanding Muppet-style hand puppets and a live narrator. Full support online for this production including teacher’s reference materials, posters and video clips here.