Big Box of Distractions presents Richard Lewis & Touchstone Center Theatre Ensemble December 19, 2009

Family Entertainment @ Irondale!
Big Box of Distractions presents
Richard Lewis & Touchstone Center Theatre Ensemble
Imagination, Magic & Play
Dec 19th 1pm – 3pm

What: Big Box of Distractions, Kids day at Irondale!
Who: Richard Lewis & The Touchstone Center Theatre Ensemble
When: Dec 19th, 1pm – 3pm
Where: Irondale Center, 85 South Oxford Street, Brooklyn
Directions: www.irondale.org, D/M/R2/3/Q/B to Atlantic/Pacific, C to Lafayette Avenue
Cost: $10 child & adult. Additional child $5, additional adult $10
Ages: 3 +

Brooklyn, NY, Saturday, December 19th, the Irondale Center presents Big Box of Distractions, a fun-filled day for kids and families. Come feel the magic as Irondale presents highly acclaimed children’s author and poet Richard Lewis in a performance with The Touchstone Center Theatre Ensemble.

Richard Lewis and The Touchstone Theatre Ensemble will take young children and their families on a magical journey that brings to life the spaces and colors of the natural world. Through playful improvisation and a simple and evocative text, become the sun and moon and stars, the hills and waters and seeds – that lead us, wondrously, into the infinite and unique spaces of our imagination and dreams. Participate in a moment of time, which will deepen and enlarge the world we live in. Following the performance, the audience will be invited to create a gift of a small book with one’s own imagined spaces of the many splendors of our earth and sky.

Created as part of the programming of The Touchstone Center, The Touchstone Center Theatre Ensemble is dedicated to exploring, for children and their families, themes of the natural world and the life of the imagination – particularly through the integration of myth, stories and poetry. The Ensemble, directed and hosted by Richard Lewis, has performed in venues all over the five boroughs including the Brooklyn Museum, Wave Hill, Staten Island Children’s Museum, Manhattan Children’s Museum, Poets House, Hudson River Museum, Brooklyn Botanical Garden, New York Botanical Garden, American Museum of Natural History, La Mama, World Financial Center, NY Public Library and the Central Park Dairy. The ensemble is made up of actress Clea Rivera and musician, Harry Mann. Their present repertoire consists of renderings of poems by Richard Lewis including All of the Earth, All of the Sky; A Tree Lives; And So It Was Day; Each Sky Has Its Words; Plant The Sun In Your Hand and Play, Said the Earth to Air.

About Richard Lewis
Richard Lewis is the founder of The Touchstone Center. He has edited and written a variety of books on the poetic and imaginative life of childhood, including When Thought Is Young, Living By Wonder, and The Bird of Imagining. His recent books are A Tree Lives, illustrated by Noah Baen, I Catch My Moment: Art and Writing by Children on the Life of Play, Sea Tale, illustrated by Gigi Alvaré, and a collection of poems, Shaking the Grass for Dew. He has taught children in public schools throughout New York City – and teachers at Lesley College, Rutgers University, Bank Street College and Sarah Lawrence College.

About The Touchstone Center
The Touchstone Center is a non-profit educational organization founded in 1969 in New York City, which, through its programs in arts and education, theatre, teacher’s workshops, exhibitions and publishing projects, encourages and supports the importance of the imaginative and poetic process in learning and understanding. The Center has a particular interest in the intersection of the imagination and the natural world – and how such a fusion allows participants to express their own understanding of the varied phenomena we know as ‘nature’. www.touchstonecenter.net

About Irondale
The Irondale Center is the permanent home of the Irondale Ensemble, a 26 year old Theater Company comprised of professional theater artists who have a commitment to creating theater and education programs that explore emerging themes in our society. The Center is also a multi-discipline laboratory for the work of other artists and companies. Ensemble members manage, and curate the Center, nurturing and presenting work that contributes to the cultural, social and educational life of the community. For more information please visit: www.irondale.org

Official Website: http://www.irondale.org