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Tales from the Tree
Four original fairy tales by four female writers
***RESCHEDULED***
DECEMBER 5, 6, 7, 8 & 9 @ 8pm
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About
- Sparrowtree Theatre Company is proud to announce its newest production, Tales from the Tree, a night of original and imaginative fairy tales written by four emerging female playwrights. These dark and innovative works will incorporate theatre, film, music and dance to transport the audience to colorful worlds filled with strange happenings.
*Please note the new dates*December 5, 6, 7, 8 & 9 at 17 Frost Theatre of the Arts in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. (L and G train at Lorimer). All shows @ 8pm.BUY TICKETS NOW
The Four Plays:
Abyssine by Anjelica Young, directed by Chad L. Howard
Flowerama, written and directed by Lillie Jayne
Overgrown, written and directed by Carly Howard
The Dead Moon by Lavinia Roberts, directed by Clare Hammoor
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The Plays
- The Plays, The Playwrights
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Wall
- Opening night was a success! Thanks to all who made it out. Join us tonight for round two...
- Sparrowtree is looking for someone to work the door this coming Friday and Saturday for Tales from the Tree. You will get to see the show for free! If you are interested email carly@sparrowtree.org...Sooner than later!
- Visit the website below to get your tickets! Opens tomorrow Dec. 5th! Tomorrow is a FREE show open to the community. FIrst come, first serve!
- Nobody works harder than Lillie. Come see the fruits of her labor starting this Thursday. www.talesfromthetree.com
- Opening night is next week! There are only 5 shows, so you should reserve your seat now. Presale tickets are just $10.
- Just one of the four short fairy tales written for Tales from the Tree! Tickets and more info at www.talesfromthetree.com.
- "And she began to smoke, Humbert Humbert’s little nymphette began to smoke." Rehearsal photo from Anjelica Young's original fairy tale, "Abyssine."
- Asked for short fairy tales on reddit; this is the top rated submission: *** She'd been there for years and years, under the earth and waiting. Keeping herself quiet and curled wasn’t easy, all jagged fur and cruel teeth and half-open yellow eyes. She slept, and waited. The night was thick and heavy, the dark pressed close at the carriage windows, and they looked out with fear in their hearts. She felt them rumbling along the road above, so close. She climbed, faster and faster, she smelt them, so close, delicious, delicious… The carriage screamed to a halt, and they saw her on the road. "Delicious, delicious… oh let me come in…” -cyphered
- Carly Howard wrote a strange and wonderful piece for our production filled with live music, film and dance. I'd recommend getting your $10 tickets soon as there are only 5 shows (December 5-9th 17 Frost Street Space). www.talesfromthetree.com
- We have set the new dates for Tales from the Tree: December 5-9 @ 8pm. Hope to see you there!
- Due to the effects of the hurricane, we've made the difficult decision to reschedule our performances of Tales from the Tree. New dates to be announced soon...
- Costume fittings for Tales from the Tree: Four Original Fairy Tales. The show opens next week!
- The poster art. Can you find all the animals in the leaves?
- Off to rehearsal. Excited to see the progress on Lillie's play. Her previous piece "Maritime" was an audience favorite at our last fall show. Oh, and friendly reminder: that show was sold out. So maybe you should get your tickets now as we're only holding a few door tickets. ($6 for a few more days! - Check out our page)
- Anjelica Young wrote a wonderfully twisted play for our November production of Tales From the Tree: Four Original Fairy Tales. You should come see it.
- The four Tales from the Tree playwrights.
- At last night's production meeting.
- Yes, there's auditions happening this Saturday! Since you like our page, you're invited!
- Auditions for Sparrowtree
- “When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.” -C.S. Lewis
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Posts
- The Goat
The tree tells me that the moon is gone for good. We’re both blind and so I ask him how he knows. He doesn’t say anything because he doesn’t understand. Trees can talk to goats, but goats can’t talk to trees. That’s just the way it is.
“Have you heard about the moon being gone for good?” I ask the water. The water knows for sure, but the water can’t understand goats, either.
I take a drink and it’s cold.
I was a prince, I remember, and I could sing and make clay pots. Or I was a servant or a prince’s horse. That was yesterday or on television. I’m blind, remember, but I can see flashes of cereal ads and the girl he took to prom. She’d kissed him (or was it me?) and smiled so big, then just ran and ran and never came back.
And there’s the grass and I take some and I chew, wondering at what’s missing.
By: Aurora Lane
- Untitled
She was lost in the middle of everything when she first noticed the stars were like eyes, staring down at her, bright with insight.
She sat down on a hill top and tried to read their message like she did poems and novels, but could not decipher their language. The longer she tried, the more their energies seemed to collide - her furrowed brow stimulated super novas far and wide.
She did not stray. Her body solidified in stillness, her bones transforming into matter much denser. Her hair grew into ivy that draped down her sides. But her eyes remained human, searching distant space for the truth she knew it must hide.
She remained as the sun painted the sky; water color scheme sunsets of yellow and red and white, indigo twilights preceding the ever black cold winter nights. Her tears were rain and her breath, water vapor - her hands wrought flesh creatures that did not seek pleasure or the kindness of strangers.
She thought, I want to be on Orion’s belt, I want to be one with what is too far for my hands to grasp, I want to be gone and I want to know all. I don’t want to die in chains.
Her stomach emptied of bile, she shed her soft skin, she lay down on the hill top and begged the stars to help her. She strained to escape the cage of her self.
The stars watched from above as her face withered, her rose lips closed, her ivy browned. Their silvery light illuminated her eyes and made them shine like diamonds.
But in the end, as in the beginning - there was silence.
By: Sylvia Snow
- There once was a boy who dreamed of a worldThere once was a boy who dreamed of a world
Where everything was a beautiful girl
The trees, the grass, were all feminine
But to his dismay, wasn’t the world we’re in
So he coughed and laughed and puked and cried
But all that effort didn’t make the beauty at his sideSo he laughed it off and decided to play
And what do you know, he met a girl that day
By: Keith Downs - keeping
A phone sits alone on a trunk in my father’s attic.
My father is a Secret and he kept it to himself.
At night my brother and I climb like mice to where the phone waits for us to pick it up. We used to never lie, burp aloud, or ask why Father is a Secret. We never knew we had an attic, but now we go there every night because of one night.
One night all keeping broke like a jar of pennies falling from my window pane last summer and I never was able to count the pennies back up again. That one night my mother said go hide in the attic.
She said she would see us There.
What attic? Where is There?
Don’t ask questions. Seekers are coming.
My mother is a Secret now. We hear her on the phone in my father’s attic but she is where there is one more of me and one more of my brother, but only one of my mother and one of my father. Everyone has one of themselves in There, the sadness is we can’t be there till we die Earth side. Earth is round but There is a shape not defined in book, brother says. He knows that because 9 eats 7 in math world. Math is invisible now, I say.
I hate having to hide from Seekers during the day. At night we get to climb the tree from our attic window. We kiss sky birds who send us blessings from There and their feathers glow as they turn back and back into stars.
I talk to the me in There and I make her laugh. She misses me.
I’m mad at secret keeping so I’m telling you that your you misses you too.By: Conly Basham
- overgrown
The forest is full. You turned me into an owl. I sit on a branch alone.
Space is settled. I turned you into an astronaut. You sit on a planet and wait for my return.
The well is full of water. You turned it into enchanting. I make terrible wishes and they turn into butterflies. So many butterflies that fly close to my face. Their wings are feathery and they are bugs.
If you can remember before the trees were overgrown, I will give you this gold thing that is magical. And you will be able to talk to foxes and owls. All of the animals will be your friend and you will never be lonely again.
But the king will be jealous and he will send for the wicked creatures that are big and small and they will fly around on scary sticks that are probably brooms. They will come into your room at night and whisper noises that sound like sadness.
To overcome this, you will have to be the most beautiful. You will have to grow your hair long and pinch your face so that your cheeks will be pink. And you will have to be young and never cry.
Everyone in the land will wish that they had a face as pink and youthful as yours and they will start stealing your voice and your eyes. They will cut off your arms and tie you to them.
The ground is wet and flooding. You turned me into a boat. I float away.
The house is building itself. I turned you into a window. You stared at me for too long.
The fire has been put out by the children. So we must never return.By: Carly Howard
- (don't pull my) taleThe town I used to live in was situated on a hill that poured into some woods and then into a lake. Incandescence shone across the water at night; I never felt far from neighboring towns. A festival was held by the town’s shopkeepers on the night of the first full moon of the summer, in honor of my sister’s twelfth birthday.
I had committed some nasty little act of deception against her. “I’m not your best friend anymore, am I?” She bound down the hill, trailing me. I had planned on dashing through the woods, and not stopping until the rocky lake shore. But as I approached the forest I felt I was diminishing in size. Rapidly. Sarah stood at my side. The trees lurched forward.“There is only one way out,” a voice croaked, “tell me what is peculiar about the wood tonight.”“And if not?” Sarah asked.
My sister’s hand was cold and as dry as bones, despite the humidity. The old man’s toes wound and dug into the ground as he moved. Ridges had accumulated and yellowed on their nails.“Grotesque,” Sarah said. I wanted to flee. He moved closer until the sour smell of decay overwhelmed me. I turned. The forest had engulfed us.“They’ve moved,” Sarah said. Yes. “It smells different from its usual aroma?” I asked. The toes roughed the dirt on the ground. The man smiled a foul smile. “How could the trees have moved?” Sarah asked. The man did not answer, his toes ground deeper and deeper.“Roots!” she exclaimed, “the trees wouldn’t be able to move if they had roots!”
The man groaned. He burrowed his toes, but it was too late. His body splintered. It diminished. We dashed upward, toward the light of the town.By: Anjelica Young - The Gambler at Heart
A crow can remember a face for up to four years. I can’t even remember five days ago when you told me about God and how he’s not in a box. So anyway, there was a shooting star tonight that landed behind the chain link fence my yard is protected by. You will never guess what it came with. This little elf wearing little elf things and even elf ears. So naturally I tried to pick him up, but every time I tried, he got smaller and smaller, almost so small I couldn’t see him.
Do you remember that you came out of your room and sang him songs - I think they were hymns? And out of his knapsack (because that is what elves carry), came two brightly colored marbles. And the elf said, “One of these marbles will take you to cities you have never seen and you will meet people that like all the same things you like. The other will bring you either the greatest of luck or the most devastating misfortunes.”
You picked the second because it was blue and you’re a gambler at heart and were disappointed the next morning when you weren’t hit by a bus and didn’t stumble upon a long-forgotten treasure.
By: Carly and Chad Howard
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Tickets
