Marian Licha Marian Licha is an actor/storyteller. She has performed at Arena Stage, Round House Theatre, at The Capital Fringe Festival and in New York theatres. She has performed her storytelling program “A Magical Journey into Latin America” at The Kennedy Center, The National Theatre, The Capital Children’s Museum, The Museum of American History, schools and libraries in the Washington, D.C. area. She has been a guest at the "New York’s Kids" radio show in NYC. Performances: Stories on Stage (2 programs), Frida Drama, Storytelling Teaching & Performing Artist Back

Featured Plays for School Audiences Featured Plays for School Audiences InterAct Story Theatre is proud to offer a variety of performances tailored to children and young adults of all ages. Please scroll down to check out our featured plays. Also, visit our storytelling and story theatre programs ! For more information, please request more info or contact us ! Our Spring 2027 Production: Availability of productions are subject to change Not My Monkey An assembly program about working together to help your community. Grades K–5 Our Featured Play for Elementary Schools this Spring! “Not My Monkey” is a play for elementary schools about Social Awareness, Responsible Decision Making, and Relationship Skills, and the character education pillars of Respect, Responsibility, and Citizenship. Best for ages 5 and up. 50 minutes with audience interaction, K-5 audiences Contact us to schedule your performance today! ADD A TALKBACK SESSION AFTER THE SHOW! One of the best ways to fully appreciate a play is to talk with the actors who bring the play to life. Adding a Talkback session with the actors after a performance gives your students a wonderful opportunity to ask questions, explore the themes and lessons of the play, and learn more about the actor's craft. As part of the talkback, the actors will also demonstrate a little of what happens "behind the scenes", showing students how the set works and how the actors manage the split-second costume and character changes our plays require. An entertaining and educational arts experience! A typical Talkback is approximately 20 minutes in length. ADD A FOLLOW-UP CLASSROOM WORKSHOP! The fun and learning continues with a follow-up classroom workshop. After a performance, students participate in an engaging creative drama workshop with an actor from the play. Students explore the characters and themes of the play, and work together to compose and act out their own original scene extending the story of the play. This exciting workshop connects with curriculum content standards in English/Language Arts and Theatre. Contact us to schedule your program today! Featured Plays Stories on Stage World Music Family Programs < Back to InterAct in Schools

Season 2 of Wheaton Family Theatre Series Wheaton Family Theatre Series Season 2: October, 2016 through May, 2017 The Legend of Pufferfish Pat: A Tall Tale For Mad Times October 2016 A brand new tall tale looking at how we deal with anger and other big feelings. The play is performed by three actors who become a variety of characters, with the whole audience becoming cowpokes and townspeople. Kwame Ansah-Brew and Fritete Drum and Dance Ensemble November 2016 An exciting morning of rhythms, dances, songs, and chants with a clear mission of representing various ethnic groupings in Africa! All ages. Cantaré ¡Feliz Navidad! A Latin American Holiday Celebration December 2016 Enjoy songs and stories from Latin American holiday traditions: villancicos from the Andes, festejos from Peru, parrandas from Puerto Rico, African chants from Brazil, Hanukkah songs from Spain and more! All ages. A Journey Around the World through Music March 2017 Celebrate Music in Our Schools Month with Tom Teasley, award-winning percussionist, world musician and composer. An inspiring cross-cultural musical journey around the world, weaving ancient musical traditions with modern technology. Silly Smarts and Other Stories from Japan April 2017 Ali Oliver-Krueger, Artistic Director of InterAct Story Theatre, will join us for a special interactive performance of Mama-San Stories, weaving stories from her Japanese-American childhood with traditional Japanese mukashibanashi (Long-Ago Stories) in this funny and heart-warming east-meets-west story theatre experience. KidStory Theatre Festival May 2017 A theatrical celebration of stories written by kids for kids! All year long, InterAct Story Theatre artists create stories with kids, and invite kids to share their epic stories with us. Each May, we choose the best of the best and transform them into short plays, musical numbers, and vignettes performed by our InterActors. We can’t wait to see what kids dream up each year! Best for ages 3 and up. Season 6 Season 5 Season 4 Season 3 Season 11 Season 1 To keep up on the latest news about InterAct’s Wheaton Family Theatre Series Season 11 and get reminders about our next program dates, join our mailing list . We also invite you to check out our past seasons by clicking on any of the season buttons! < Back to Community Page Season 7 Season 8 Season 2 Season 9 Season 10

Amber Coleman Performing Artist Back

Erica Washington Teaching & Performing Artist Back

Read reviews about past events and articles about our work at InterAct Story Theatre. Press Scroll Down Click on any of the items below to read reviews about past events and articles about our work. Read review for The Hero of Everything Read review for Bobtail BONG BONG Read review for Voytto Tech Read reviews of The Legend of Pufferfish Pat Read reviews of One Gold Coin Article: "Take Ten with Ali Oliver-Krueger Article: "Accessible Arts"

Marshal Bailey Teaching & Performing Artist Back

Bobtail BONG BONG: A Monkey's Tale Click Here to read the review by Theatre Bloom Five Stars! October 29, 2019 “It’s quite the experience, an honestly beautiful learning endeavor that engages young audiences while they think they’re having nothing but fun and games in this great theatrical show. Bobtail Bong Bong: A Monkey’s Tail Tale is the exact theatrical experience InterAct Story Theatre has been attempting to achieve in years of late, and this new highly immersive and involved format is really working toward their overall company mission.” < Back to Press

Season 1 of Wheaton Family Theatre Series Wheaton Family Theatre Series Season 1: October, 2015 through February, 2016 The Hero of Everything October 2015 Kids and adults become superheroes for a day in this play about the importance of teamwork and the problems of trying to be The Captain of EVERYTHING. Diane Macklin November 2015 Have a hoppin’ good time with Master Storyteller Diane Macklin, sharing legendary tales of America’s folk heroes through this interactive, storytelling program for all ages. Drumming Through Time and Across Cultures December 2015 Join award-winning composer and percussionist Tom Teasley on a unique musical journey around the world, following the Silk Road from Italy to China and the Sugar Trade Route from Africa to the Americas in one unforgettable performance! Story Tapestries January 2016 Get ready to dance, sing, wiggle and giggle with the Giggling Wiggling Bookworm, Arianna Ross. Eat your fill of stories as the bookworm in you finds a new, exciting story to share. One Gold Coin - Una moneda de oro February 2016 An interactive, bilingual play for kids and families inspired by a Latin American story about the power of kindness and giving. One Gold Coin — Una moneda de oro tells the story of a great healer who comes to a village in El Salvador with a magical gold coin. Audience members "get into the act" right from their seats, singing, acting, and becoming the villagers of Regalo who see the coin pass through many hands as it works its magic. Season 6 Season 5 Season 4 Season 3 Season 2 Season 11 To keep up on the latest news about InterAct’s Wheaton Family Theatre Series Season 11 and get reminders about our next program dates, join our mailing list . We also invite you to check out our past seasons by clicking on any of the season buttons! < Back to Community Page Season 7 Season 8 Season 1 Season 9 Season 10

Staff Workshops & Trainings. Professional Development for Teachers, Artists, and Care Providers. Online programs available. Staff Workshops & Trainings As experts in arts integration and linking the arts with classroom learning, InterAct Story Theatre provides professional development opportunities for teachers, artists, and child care providers. For information about professional development residencies, intensives and institutes, please click here . If you'd like to know about our 60-minute, 90-minute, 3 hour or full professional development workshops, please scroll down! InterAct Story Theatre is an approved provider of Core of Knowledge training through the Maryland Office of Child Care; if you are a Maryland provider or center interested in hosting a training, please contact us or request more info about which trainings are eligible for Core of Knowledge clock hours. New training workshops are being added. Please check back soon, or contact us or request more info ! REQUEST MORE INFO Professional Development for Teachers, Artists, and Care Providers Books Alive for Little Ones: Building Language and Literacy Skills through Drama and Music Grades preK-1 and early childhood care providers With Ali Oliver-Krueger Early Childhood teachers, Head Start teachers, and child care providers are asked not only prepare children for school readiness to provide expert care, but also to implement a wide variety of classroom curricula. In this workshop, participants will explore how imaginative exploration of books and stories through drama and music can help build language and literacy skills, and will learn techniques they can use to lead children in acting out stories in their own words. (OCC 3 curriculum clock hours) Creating Casual Opera in the Classroom: Building Reading Comprehension and Writing Skills through Music & Drama Grades K-5 and 6-8 With Ali Oliver-Krueger In this workshop emphasizing character traits and motivations, mood, emotions, and interior monologue (for older students), teachers learn techniques through which they can lead students in examining text, making inferences, and then applying those inferences to create casual classroom operatic scenes. This work is especially strong for Reading/Language Arts and Social Studies, and has been implemented successfully with students from ages 4 and up. Drama Games for the Student Brain Grades K-5, 6-8, 9-12 Available Online! With Ali Oliver-Krueger In this training, participants learn simple yet engaging strategies that can be implemented in the classroom and adapted or expanded to address a plethora of goals and objectives. Particular emphasis is placed on articulating the rationale for drama gaming in the classroom and on providing participants with concrete strategies they can use right away to promote learning and help develop a wide range of skills. (OCC 3 curriculum clock hours) Picture This: Creating Effective Classroom Tableaux Grades 4 & up With Ali Oliver-Krueger A hallmark among strong readers is the ability to visualize and develop mental images of the actions and events described in texts. The creative drama strategy of tableaux fosters visualization skills and encourages students to develop and present strong sensory images, thereby strengthening understanding of text and allowing students to gain a deeper connection to the text. This strategy can be adapted to a variety of content areas, and is especially valuable in working with informational text. This workshop is also available as part of a professional development arts coaching residency. Reader's Theatre for Young Readers: A Creative Drama Approach Grades PreK-2 Available Online! With Ali Oliver-Krueger Readers Theatre offers students opportunities to interact with text and build oral fluency. It provides repeated reading practice, which is a key factor in building fluency. Repeated reading practice also improves students’ and enthusiasm for reading and confidence in themselves as good readers. But how to implement Readers' Theatre with young readers whose skills are just developing? In this training, Ms. Oliver-Krueger leads participants through a creative drama-based process in which teachers develop and perform engaging readers' theatre scripts with their students. In this workshop, teachers discover how to create and host an imaginary talk show, "Books Alive!", in their classrooms. Students portray characters from a book and answer questions in role. The questions encourage the students to make predictions, draw inferences and examine the theme of the text. An amazingly fun way to achieve and assess reading comprehension! Jump Start Creative Writing Through Creative Drama Grades K-5, 6-8, 9-12, adult education Available Online! With Ali Oliver-Krueger Sometimes the hardest part of writing is just getting started! In this professional development workshop led by InterAct Story Theatre’s Executive & Artistic Director Ali Oliver-Krueger, participants learn by playing and creating stories on the spot, exploring strategies that spark creativity and address prewriting skills, oral composition and discourse, speaking and listening skills. We'll engage in warm-up activities for getting brains moving quickly and flexibly, and strategies for facilitating brainstorming and collaborative composition, and tips for dramatizing stories as a way to review and identify points of revision. These include concrete, easy-to-apply "bite sized strategies" that teachers can apply quickly in a few minutes, expand into full arts-integrated lessons and units, or even use to springboard students into creative projects and deeper exploration of content. Music Detectives: Practicing Inferencing Skills through Music and Active Listening Grades K-5 and 6-8 With Ali Oliver-Krueger The ability to look beyond what is explicitly stated in order to make inferences is one of the key characteristics of strong readers, and is consistently one of the biggest challenges faced by struggling and reluctant readers today. This powerful strategy combines active listening, movement, and music to give students valuable practice in making inferences. Participants will learn the process of a Music Detectives lesson: learning and applying basic elements of music to examine musical samples, searching for clues, reading between the lines to make inferences, and then citing specific evidence from the "text" to support their theories. By giving students a chance to practice making inferences away from written text, we help students gain skills in predicting, drawing conclusions, and hazarding educated guesses, so that they can bring those skills to written text with greater confidence. Reading Between the Lines: Building Inferencing Skills through Music and Drama Grades K-5 and 6-8 With Ali Oliver-Krueger This workshop combines the strategies of Music Detectives and Creating Casual Opera, offering teachers a comprehensive approach to building reading comprehension and writing skills through drama. Teachers learn techniques to prompt inferences through active listening, acting, and simple composition. These strategies can be learned and applied by non-musicians and music enthusiasts alike! Black Belt Tableaux: Advanced Tableaux Skills for Assessment and the Common Core Grades 3-5, 6-8, 9-12 With Ali Oliver-Krueger Tableaux and Living Statues are among the first creative drama strategies that many teachers learn for integrating drama with classroom curriculum. But are you and your students getting the most you can out of this powerful and endlessly adaptable strategy?Designed primarily for teachers who have had some exposure to Tableaux, Living Statues, and/or Artful Thinking routines, this workshop explores advanced adaptations and extensions such as Conflict Webs and Statues, Internal/External Conflict, The Human Video Feed, Tableaux games, and effective uses of Tableaux as Assessment. In the half-day and full day workshops, teachers also have an opportunity to discuss and workshop ongoing work with this strategy, to brainstorm with Ms. Oliver-Krueger and their peers for ways to fine-tune and freshen up existing plans. This workshop is also available as part of a professional development arts coaching residency. A Creative Drama Approach to Reader's Theatre Grades K-8 Available Online! With Ali Oliver-Krueger This workshop introduces simple creative-drama based techniques through which teachers can lead students in developing, planning and performing Readers' Theatre presentations rooted in literary text or content curricula. Readers' Theatre offers students opportunities to interact with text and build oral fluency. It provides repeated reading practice, which is a key factor in building fluency. Repeated reading practice also improves students’ and enthusiasm for reading and confidence in themselves as good readers. The process of developing and performing original Readers' Theatre scripts also gives students a fun, creative way to not only build their understanding of a text or topic but also demonstrate their understanding to others. Informational OPERAtunities: Exploring Informational Text through Music and Drama With Ali Oliver-Krueger Informational text can sometimes feel dry, and motivating students to dive in can seem like a daunting task. How can we inspire students to embrace informational text with the curiosity and zeal of artists? Many of the best composers, playwrights and performers dive into informational text and research to create artistic work by reading between the lines to imagine the actions, emotions, motivations and conversations. In this workshop, teachers learn techniques through which they can lead students in approaching informational texts like artists: examining sources, building knowledge, making inferences, and then applying those inferences to create casual classroom operatic scenes that breathe life into the topic through music and drama. A portion of the workshop is dedicated to brainstorming and planning practical applications for the classroom; teachers are encouraged to bring an example of informational text or curriculum planning materials they might like to explore with their students. < Back to InterAct in Schools

InterAct Story Theatre’s Wheaton Family Theatre Series is a free, monthly performing arts series that runs each year fall through spring. Season 10 of Wheaton Family Theatre Series. Wheaton Family Theatre Series To keep up on the latest news about InterAct’s Wheaton Family Theatre Series Season 11 and get reminders about our next program dates, join our mailing list . We also invite you to check out our past seasons 1—10 by clicking on any of the season buttons! Season 10 Season 9 Season 8 Season 7 Season 6 Season 5 Season 4 Season 3 Season 2 Season 1 < Back to Community Page Season 11 Season 10: 2024—2025 Event held at Highland Elementary School - 3100 Medway Street, Wheaton, MD 20902 FREE and open to the public! No tickets or registration needed. This October, Tom Teasley, award-winning percussionist, world musician and composer returns to Wheaton! Tom dazzles audiences with an inspiring cross-cultural musical journey around the world, weaving ancient musical traditions with modern technology. A unique performance not to be missed! Great for all ages. Saturday, October 5 & Sunday, October 6, 2024 Award-winning world musician & composer Tom Teasley A Journey Around the World through Music Event held at Highland Elementary School - 3100 Medway Street, Wheaton, MD 20902 FREE and open to the public! No tickets or registration needed. In November we welcome Story Tapestries back to Wheaton Family Theatre Series. Their program features the dynamic Hip Hop artist Jamaal "Mr. Root" Collier. Jamaal's interactive and engaging Hip Hop-based performance is challenging, fun and entertaining! Each member of the audience has an opportunity to 'GET INVOLVED' with call-and-response, steady beat chants, pop quizzes, beat production and even some group dancing! Jamaal explains the importance of expressing yourself and explains how some legends of the culture have done the same. This performance is fun to watch but it's even better when you GET INVOLVED! Saturday, November 9 & Sunday, November 10, 2024 Story Tapestries featuring Jamaal "Mr. Root" Collier Event held at Highland Elementary School - 3100 Medway Street, Wheaton, MD 20902 FREE and open to the public! No tickets or registration needed. This January, celebrate the start of the New Year as InterAct Story Theatre’s Artistic Director, Ali Oliver-Krueger leads kids and adults in exploring a favorite folk tale together through movement, drama, and song. Everyone’s a part of the story in this Family Arts Workshop! Best for ages 3 and up. Sunday, January 12, 2025 A Family Literacy Fiesta with InterAct's Ali Oliver-Krueger Books Alive Saturday, February 22, 2025 Event held at Highland Elementary School - 3100 Medway Street, Wheaton, MD 20902 FREE and open to the public! No tickets or registration needed. Join Kelly King, InterAct Story Theatre teaching artist and founder of Contradiction Dance Theatre and The Movement Movement as we'll explore a kid-friendly folk tale through creative movement and dance. Kids get to practice reading skills while moving, dancing, and sharing stories with our families and friends. No prior dance training needed...just bring your body and get ready to move. What a fun way to dance away the winter blues! Best for ages 3 and up. Dancing Our Way Through Books led by Kelly King Event held at Highland Elementary School - 3100 Medway Street, Wheaton, MD 20902 FREE and open to the public! No tickets or registration needed. The Legend of Pufferfish Pat: A Tall Tale for Mad Times is a play set in the Old West, looking at how we deal with anger and other big feelings. When Pat gets angry, he blows up like a Pufferfish, which gets him a new name and a reputation that he doesn't want. With the little town of Gravy Gulch heating up for the annual gravy cook off, it's more important than ever that he keep his cool! Where can he go to find folks who might understand? The play is performed by actors appearing as a multitude of characters, with the whole audience becoming cowpokes and townspeople right from where they sit! Best for ages 5 and up. Saturday, March 15 & Sunday, March 16, 2025 The Legend of Pufferfish Pat: A Tall Tale for Mad Times Saturday, April 5 & Sunday, April 6, 2025 Event held at Highland Elementary School - 3100 Medway Street, Wheaton, MD 20902 FREE and open to the public! No tickets or registration needed. InterAct Story Theatre welcomes back our friends from Happenstance Theater as these charming vintage clowns play circus animals, sing as a human calliope, do a classic circus mirror routine, invent a number of ridiculous “entrées,” perform live music, and execute a preposterous slow motion number involving a pie! All ages. Photo credit: Leslie Swan Photography Happenstance Theatre: PREPOSTEROUS! Event held at Highland Elementary School - 3100 Medway Street, Wheaton, MD 20902 FREE and open to the public! No tickets or registration needed. All year long, InterAct Story Theatre artists create stories with kids, and invite them to share their epic stories with us. This May, we’re choosing some of our favorite stories written by kids over the years, as we present a series of short plays and stories performed by our InterActors. We can’t wait to see what kids dream up each year! Best for ages 4 and up. Saturday, May 17 & Sunday, May 18, 2025 KidStory Theatre Festival A theatrical celebration of stories written by kids for kids Mail List Past programs:

Penny Russell Penny Russell has worked as a writer, director and performer with the Blue Sky Puppet Theatre since 1994. She performs with Good Life Theatre, with whom she just completed a three year run at Wolf Trap, and sings with the Swing Set Trio and the Roland Cumberland Orchestra. Past performing credits include Bread and Puppet Theater, The Other Opera Company, Adventure Theatre and The Puppet Company at Glen Echo. Penny has worked as a director and performer for Seize the Day: Mixed Abilities Performance, Quest 4 Arts, Camp Jabberwocky on Martha's Vineyard, Camp Tulgey Wood on Nantucket, and the Iona Community in Scotland. In addition to teaching and performing with InterAct Story Theatre, Penny is a teaching artist with the Wolf Trap Institute for Early Learning through the Arts and with ArtsStream. Puppetry Teaching & Performing Artist Back