A LION'S TALE: SOMALI FOLK TALES
“My home and the celebrations are vague the longer I’m here. But, all I have to do is look at you to see my homeland before my eyes.”
Adapted from Said Salah Ahmed's THE LION'S SHARE
Book & Lyrics by Christina Ham
Music & Lyrics by Gary Rue
Full-length Theater for Young Audiences Musical, no Intermission
7B, 6G, plus multiple chorus roles for boys and girls; doubling possible
The Music for this Play Has Been Licensed
Please contact DBA Plays for Young Audiences for More Information
612-872-5108
pya@childrenstheatre.org
Two Somali siblings who view certain customs in the United States as divergent from their traditional ones are magically transported to Somalia where they become characters in a series of their native folktales that have been passed down throughout the generations.
Aasha and Ali struggle to blend into their Midwestern community with its American customs while trying to maintain their Somali eritage. As they wait on their parents to immigrate and join them in the United States they rely on their cousin Hassan to help them navigate the landscape of childhood in America. This culminates with an invitation to their first American birthday party where they learn what it's like to be American and the other kids discover what it means to be Somali. During this cross-cultural exchange the kids become magically transported to Baaq in Somalia where they become characters in a series of ancient village folktales about village life, and surviving the dangerous lion.
This delightful children's musical incorporates fantasy and traditional folktales in order to illuminate the cultural differences that can still unite us.
OF NOTE
Commission from SteppingStone Theatre in 2006
WORLD PREMIERE
May 2007
SteppingStone Theatre, St. Paul MN
directed by Taous Claire Khazem