Tag Archives: Children’s theatre

Scottish TV Interviews Mara Menzies

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Toto Tales

More interviews!  This time on STV (Scottish Television)!

Cheeeeesiiiiiiin’!!!

This time with STV’s beautiful Clare Carswell.

Watch here

And here’s what Clare wrote:

“Local story-teller, Mara Menzies is thriving at this year’s Fringe with sold out shows and four star reviews for ‘Under the Bao Bab Tree’ – a collaboration with a Singaporean theatre company.

Mara is a Leith based artist whose company, Toto Tales, has recently marked its fourth birthday and 2011 marks her third year performing at the Fringe.

She was born in Kenya and lived there until she moved to Scotland at the age of 13. As a child she did not have a television and would only be able to watch it at the local hotel once a week.

She said: “I spent a lot of time with my grandmother who would tell stories and it was very much part of the culture for local people to be telling stories in the evening once the working day is done.

“When I moved here it just went. I didn’t realise that part of my life had gone until I was much older, until I was expecting my first child.

“I wanted to tell my baby east African stories but I couldn’t find one so I thought. I’ll write one.”

Mara self-published the book and sold it to friends and family. In trying to find new audiences she started performing and established her business.

She performed at the Fringe in 2008 and 2009 and her show two years ago was spotted by the Singapore based children’s theatre company, iTheatre, as a result she was invited to collaborate and perform in Singapore before bringing the show to the Fringe.

Jonathan Lam, from iTheatre said: “I come from a background of puppetry, physical theatre, acting and dance we keep the fourth wall up when we perform but Mara is excellent at engaging with the children.”

Mara said: “To perform at the world’s largest arts festival is a fantastic opportunity. Artists come from all over the world and showcase all different art forms so I feel really privileged to be here and experience all these things.

“I suppose there is a bonus to being local because Edinburgh residents make up a large percentage of the total audiences and there are often children and others who have seen me throughout the year and want to see the Fringe show.”

You can read and see the interview here or go to http://local.stv.tv/edinburgh-north/news/22942-local-story-teller-thrives-at-the-fringe/

Juggling Motherhood And Performing On The Stage

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Under The Baobab Tree, Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2011

The show is in full swing, the audience are warmed up and giving it gusto, you’ve prepped them, they’re hovering in anticipation to what’s coming next when….’mummy’, that tiny familiar voice pops up from somewhere in the audience…’why are you wearing that ostrich?’

Ah yes…every parent performer has experienced their child heckling at some point or another unless they’ve been wise enough to keep the kids well away but with childrens theatre it is unthinkable not to bring the kids along.

Imani (who’s almost 4) has seen ‘Under the Baobab Tree’ 3 times now, is addicted to the songs and has almost learned the script by heart, is now fully capable of shouting out the punchline just before you give it, informing the audience of how the story ends and if you commit the crime of forgetting a word…beware….she will correct you! Right there and then.

So why do we allow these tiny terrors into our theatres, our performance spaces? What benefits are there? Well, for me, it’s when the festival is gone and we sit on a tree stump in the Botanic Gardens and I lie back and am entertained by a rather brilliant almost 4 year old raconteur.

Toto love

Mara x

PS: Any funny kids stories that you have been told? Let us know here:)

Exclusive: In-Depth Interview With A Child On Children’s Theatre

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Zebra Makes His Grand Entrance

Here’s a lovely interview I did with one of our charming audience members – Zazou Wycherley – this morning.

I promise, cross my heart, that I did not pay her in chips, chocolate, fizzy juice or sweeties to say what she said.

It was all genuinely from the heart, and funny too.

Zazou (8) recommends children’s theatre should not be scary, although gory is fine but “not that scary and like scary as in SCARED”

Listen HERE

Thanks, Zazou.

Toto love, Mara x

PS. Do add your comments here or on our shiny new Audioboo shop front.  Do you agree? Think they’re wrong?

The All Important Show Promotion

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Street performer on the Royal Mile, Edinburgh,...

Edinburgh's Royal Mile

Despite the rain and the miserable grey Scottish weather, the Edinburgh Fringe is quite simply not the same unless you have paced up and down the Royal Mile, feeling the freeze and handing out flyers.

There is very fierce competition along the Mile and our children’s show really needs to stand out. But with such incredible footfall, it is absolutely the best place to promote your show.

Yes, there are the boring promotionals going on, but down the Royal Mile you will find four 40yr old Korean men in nappies pulling funny faces: a strange head followed by a pair of iron claws; the usual accapella  singers from Oxford/Cambridge and plenty more.

Jon & The Subman

Jon Lum (our colourful zebra with the world’s most enormous ego) found himself next to Subman on the Meadows (a beautiful park by the centre of the city).

Incredibly, Subman was playing a sweet, wee tune, while wearing those ridiculous yellow gloves. Must be in the contract … NEVER TAKE OFF THE GLOVES!!!

As soon as our flyers arrived we excitedly went out to share the love and tell absolutely everyone in Edinburgh about the very best children’s storytelling theatre show in the planet.

Unfortunately, we made the mistake of not being in our colourful animal outfits. As a result, we didn’t get a particularly exciting response and that meant it wasn’t particularly motivating for us either.

So, the next day we were decked out in style. We had Mama Ostrich out there, Monkey went around nibbling the kids and of course Zebra was there playing into the hands of the parents and little kids who couldn’t quite figure the old diva.

I felt there was a really positive response and so here’s hoping many of them come to see the show.

The reviewers came to see the show today so let’s hope a couple of good reviews and plenty of flyering helps the audience numbers grow.  As it is, we are already beating Edinburgh Fringe Festival average records by miles.

We will be flyering immediately after our 10am children’s theatre performance of Under The Baobab Tree so the puppets will have to come out for a walk too!  Do come and say “hiya.”

I will post more pics up soon, but in the mean time if you have any that you’ve taken, or you’ve seen something ridiculous, tell us all about it. How far will people go to sell their show?

Toto love, Mara xxx

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The Tech Rehearsal

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4 hours in the venue today!!!

The build up to it has been frantic with sleepless nights and of course all the little things going wrong!

Our backdrop consists of three stunning bamboo screens with the shape of a baobab tree (a couple of trees slightly stretched) but baobabs nonetheless. These are designed to hang from the rigging using a combination of S hooks and nylon string.

As the production crew arrived yesterday, Hatta the stage manager laughed loudly as he told us how his girlfriend had called while he was at the airport to let him know the 10cm S hooks were in the car back in Singapore!

10cm S-Hooks! Where were we going to find these in Edinburgh?

So began the hunt. B&Q … none! Homebase … none! Screwfix … none!

Getting desperate now so when the a friend helpfully suggested Crombies (“they use S-Hooks for hanging their meat, dont’ they?” I decide to try.

Went over this morning and no … they don’t have any S-Hooks either.

He did however, rather helpfully suggest going to the abbatoir.

Over To You

I imagine there must be hundreds of other crazy stories of Edinburgh Fringe Festival people running around Edinburgh looking for random props and tools.

Do tell.  We’d love to share them around. Drop a wee story in the Comment Box and we can all have a laugh!

Toto love, Mara x