Behind the Plays

We're Back with More Character Ed

2008-09-16T08:31:00.000-07:00

A quick apology for the many months since I've blogged. I have a cardiac defibrillator implanted in my my chest, and it fired for the first time at the beginning of February. (In case you're wondering, I honestly thought the room suddenly exploded. Not much fun.) This led to many months of doctors running every possible test on me and arguing among themselves on whether I did or did not need a heart transplant.

Fast forward to September. I still have the heart I was born with, and I feel fine. So let me tell you about Bad Wolf.

Our spring release, U.S. Constitution, was held up for months until I was able to complete it. It came out in May, which was too late for most teachers to use it. A few managed to put it on, and we've heard some very good things. John and I really like it.

Over the summer we worked on a sequel to our best-selling Character Matters, and a few weeks ago we released Character Matters II. Here's the URL:
http://www.badwolfpress.com/charactermatters-II.htm

Like all of our plays, you can read the first one-third of the script and listen to four sample songs.

I think the script is very funny, and I think this is the best set of songs we've ever recorded.
I'll tell you more about it in the near future. For now, please go check out the script.

Are There Bullies At Your School?

2008-01-26T11:24:00.000-08:00

Here's a true story. When my daughter was a freshman in high school, she hated to walk to school because one girl taunted her every morning. The daily bullying made for a difficult year.

After my daughter graduated from college she mentioned that she recently found out what happened to that bully. That girl, at the age of twenty-two, had two children, from two different fathers, both of whom were in jail.

I think there are two lessons here. One is bullies often have miserable lives, and the other is those who are bullied find it really, really unpleasant. Reliable studies show both of these things to be true.

So if your school has bullies, they're making some kids truly unhappy and at the same time practically assuring a bad future for themselves. As teachers, we don't want either of these things to happen.

What can we do? There's a bunch of anti-bullying programs available, and some of them are probably somewhat effective. And then there is "Bullies Anonymous," our most recent musical, which is guaranteed to have catchy melodies that get stuck in your head and dumb jokes from the fertile mind of lyricist John Heath.

Will "Bullies Anonymous" solve your schools bullying problem? It's too new to really know. But after 80,000 productions of Bad Wolf Press plays over the last thirteen years, an awful lot of teachers seem to trust us.

You can read the first third of "Bullies Anonymous" and listen to sample songs from it here:
http://www.badwolfpress.com/bullies.htm (Copy and paste into your browser if the link doesn't work for you.

And you can see the musicians and singers who performed on the recording here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/22402091@N03/sets/72157603780804596/detail/

Let me know if you have any questions.
Best wishes,
Ron

Bullies Anonymous

2008-01-01T22:46:00.000-08:00

If anyone reading this liked our play "Character Matters" then you owe it to your self to check out the brand new "Bullies Anonymous."

This wasn't easy to write---how in the world are we supposed to talk about bullies and not be preachy or boring? But I think we've done pretty darn well. The first third of the script will be posted at our website in a couple of days, and there are already four sample songs for you to inspect.

I know you want to know about the whole play, but as the music guy, I have to tell you about the songs. We decided to go all out for this show, so we wound up hiring six different singers and players to bring as much variety as possible. I'll have photos of the players in the studio soon, but for now let me tell you about them and let you do some listening.

We were very lucky to get Dana Shaw again. This singer actress has moved to New York City, which isn't convenient to southern California where I am. But she came back to visit her family for Christmas and we managed to record her during her stay. Here she is with a song about the girl who refused to be pushed around by bullies.
http://www.badwolfpress.com/becky.mp3

Brenda Tzipori has sung on the last 26 Bad Wolf shows, so most of you have probably heard her voice. I really appreciate how she finds a way of acting out every song she records. I really like how on the song about the bullyometer she sounds so pompous at the start and then relaxes as the song picks up tempo. (John and Mike also took part.) http://www.badwolfpress.com/complete_bullyometer.mp3

Tanya Wright returns for her second recording and she managed to sing after hosting a million out-of-town guests for Christmas (and suffering through a car crash just a few days before the holiday.) Here she is singing lead (and you'll also hear Mike, Sam and John) http://www.badwolfpress.com/dont_step_in_BG_vocals.mp3

Mike Fishell played multiple electric guitar on three songs and Dobro on another. Mike is another Bad Wolf veteran, as well as a sixth grade teacher in Oxnard, CA.

Sam Coleman played drums and percussion on a couple of songs, which is the first time I've ever been able to record a drummer for any of the shows. His hand-drumming on "Don't Step In" really woke the song up.

John Robinson played trombones on "Don't Step In" and "The Bullyometer." He arrived at the studio with three different trombones, and experimented with each until he found the right instrument for the songs.

I'll leave these mp3 files up through January, and I'll soon tell you more about the play itself.

Teaching Teachers in Madrid

2007-11-26T08:35:00.000-08:00

John and I have just returned from a two-day workshop in Madrid, where we worked with music teachers from international schools from all around Europe.

This was a big deal for us because no one has ever let us out of the country before.

Our assigned task was to teach how to write and produce a musical. So we selected a traditional Spanish folktale (The Three Golden Oranges) and we asked the group of twenty-one teachers to turn it into a short musical by the end of the second day.

This sounded quite difficult to us, and we were worried that the whole thing would turn out to be a fiasco. But the group was so talented and enthusiastic that they pulled it off.

At the end of day two they performed the show in the auditorium at International College Spain (a K-12 school built around the International Baccalaureate program.) The 30-minute show featured seven original songs as well as an extended dance sequence. We had divided the teachers into groups of twos and threes to write the songs, and each group not only wrote music and lyrics, but they then found other members of the class to sing their solos, chorus parts, and play percussion.

They were dazzling performers who improvised vocal harmonies and movements on the fly. The performance took place on Thanksgiving Day (not a holiday in Europe) and now four days later I can't get the songs out of my head.

A big thank you to the music committee of ecis.org and especially to the participants who made our time so fulfilling.

We're Back...and with Eleven Holidays!

2007-09-09T12:07:00.000-07:00

Hi, I seem to have taken the summer off from blogging, but I'm back and ready to report on the exciting inner world of an tiny independent school publisher.

In my last entry I was asking for suggestions on what John and I ought to be writing about. We received at least a hundred emails and phone calls telling us what you need in your classroom. The tricky part is there are a lot of different needs, and it's difficult to tell how many other teachers share your specific problem.

So we talked about it endlessly over a couple of months and came up with the three plays for the 2007-08 school year. The first one is coming out in a couple of days and I want to tell you about it.

Bad Wolf's Holiday Song's for the Classroom isn't a play at all, but brief songs and skits for eleven school year celebrations. It's specifically aimed at grades K-2, which are certainly the age group we tend to ignore. But not now.

The celebrations include Halloween, Martin Luther King Day, Thanksgiving, the first and last days of school, Presidents' Day, Earth Day, and Memorial Day. We wrote two songs for some of the celebrations and just one for most of them---we've a total of 15 songs here.

Would you like to hear one? Here's Dana Shaw singing about the first Thanksgiving: (You might have to copy and paste this address into your browser.)

http://www.badwolfpress.com/three_day_harvest_feast.mp3

Did you notice that the instruments are just piano, bass, and percussion? I decided to do this entire recording this way. I'd never done this before, and that seemed like a great reason to try it. I think some of the arrangements are pretty interesting, and hope you think so.

Here's one of our Halloween songs, sung by Tanya Wright, who is new to Bad Wolf:

http://www.badwolfpress.com/whatcha_gonna_be.mp3

And how about a song for Martin Luther King Day. This is sung by Brenda Tzipori, who has been performing on our recordings for several years:

http://www.badwolfpress.com/there_was_a_time.mp3

Let me know what you think of these songs. I'll be telling you more quite soon.
Ron

New Photos/Brain-Wasting Disease

2007-05-25T11:07:00.000-07:00

This month's piece has two completely different subjects, although they're both connected to the coming year of plays at Bad Wolf Press. Topic one is our request for photos, and number two is help the poor writers decide what to write.

First of all, our spiffy catalog has pictures of students involved with our plays. They might be performing, or rehearsing, or putting on a costume, or maybe their teacher is showing them how to do something. Did you think all those kids were professional models? Not at all, they're kids at a couple of schools near my house.

Would you like any of your students to be shown in the next Bad Wolf catalog? It'll be printed in July, so we're gathering photos right now. We'd love to see photos with you and your kids!

Here's what you need to know to about pictures:

*  My graphic artist tells me that it's crucial to get up close to the kids
  when taking pictures.Big groups don't work well---aim for one to four or
  five, at most.

*  Be sure the digital camera is set to highest resolution. (That's a big
  deal for reproduction.)

*  Often the best time to take the photos is before the performance or 
  during a rehearsal. It's almost impossible to get great photos when 
  the play is going on.

*  We're not interested in fancy costumes or sets. What we want to see
  are the faces of the kids. (Did I already suggest getting up close?)

*  Oh, one more thing. We need to have parents sign a release form to
  be able to publish the photos.
  Here's the wording we use:

I give permission for photos of my child _________ rehearsing and/or
performing in a class play to be used in the catalog or website of the
plays publisher Bad Wolf Press.

Information about Bad Wolf is available at their website:
www.badwolfpress.com

Signed and dated: _______________________

On to our second subject, which is the writers' inability to decide
what to write next. We've been asking teachers recently, and a few
topics have repeatedly come up. What do you think?

*   The U.S. Constitution
*   Basic Chemistry (including liquids, solids, gasses)
*   Physics
*   Astronomy (more advanced than our solar system play, and discussing 
   stars, galaxies, and other cool stuff)
*   Something for English language learners
*   A sequel to our best-selling "Character Matters" play
*   How to write an essay

Okay, it's your chance to tell us what the world needs. You can email us:
ron@badwolfpress.com

We'll look forward to hearing from you!

Shakespeare is Out, Out, Out!

2007-04-08T20:18:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note to tell you that the long-delayed play about the life and times of William Shakespeare is finally shipping.

This play is for two different groups of kids. The obvious group is the one that is already studying a Shakespeare play. Those kids could have a great time reading our play aloud and listening to the songs. Have them read it once and you've committed about 35 minutes to an entertaining activity that'll really help them understand who Shakespeare was and what his world was like.

(You could of course read it two or three times---changing your casting each time. That way the students will be singing along with the recording and the learning will be deeper and more permanent.)

So much for group one. The second group of kids that this play is for are those who are NOT studying Shakespeare. Why? Because spending some time with this play will give them a solid and fun introduction to the most important writer that has ever worked with the English language. And then when they eventually see or read a Shakespeare play, they'll understand what to expect, and be able to appreciate it.

If you are teaching a group of kids that don't fall into one of these groups, please contact me.

Grade level? We're thinking fifth grade through high school.

I know what teachers are always asking: is the music upbeat? Yes it is. There's punk, pop, jazz, dance, and even a dixieland tune. You can hear samples from all the songs and read the first third of the script at http://www.badwolfpress.com/shakespeare.htm

Where else will you get to hear from William Shakespeare's third grade teacher?

I'll look forward to hearing from you soon.

Shakespeare is SO Close

2007-03-20T09:06:00.000-07:00

This is the week we're recording the music for our new play Shakespeare Unshackled. (For those who don't know about it, it's an introduction to the life and times of Shakespeare for students in grades 5-high school.)

I never started a publishing company because I wanted to keep track of mailing lists or design catalogs. John and I started by writing musical plays for kids, and we were pushed into the publishing part. So here were are finally doing what we're really good at, writing and producing songs.

Several days ago I notated the four songs that Brenda Tzipori would be singing on and made rough demonstration recordings for her to listen to. That gave me a couple of days to actually start recording the instruments that she would sing to. And yesterday afternoon Brenda came in and sang her songs. As usual, some of it was easy and some parts of some songs were difficult to perform. Brenda may or may not have been swearing at the writers, but she wasn't perfectly happy...just like usual.

Today my job is to notate and make rough demo recordings of the four songs that Dana Shaw will be singing. After I put her demos into the mail my job is both to record her songs as well as do more work on Brenda's tunes. I need to get enough of the instruments recorded so guitarist Mike Fishell will be able to jump in and easily do parts on many songs when he's here on Friday.

And after Dana sings on Saturday it'll be time to mix the recordings down to stereo, make the master CD and listen to it very carefully.

I'm thinking that we'll be shipping in two weeks, as long as John and I are really productive over the next week. I think we'll pull it off.

Here's a sample lyric from the show. It's sung by King James with a little help from his courtiers:

I've got a dozen castles and a pile of meat
And twenty-seven servants to massage my feet
But all I'm really wanting is a front row seat
Too-rah-loo-rah-ay.

The King's Men are my troop so I just send a note
"Now come perform the latest thing that Shakespeare wrote,
And if you're late I'll have you all thrown in the moat"
Too-rah-loo-rah-ay.

Too-rah-loo-rah-ay, too-rah-loo-rah-ay,
Who da king?
(You da king!)
Who da man?
(You da man!)
Start the play, too-rah-l0o-rah-ay!

Since I've been king we've seen the best from Will Shakespeare
He finished his Othello and that old King Lear
I wonder why so many crazy kings appear
Too-rah-loo-rah-ay.

They say he's got a new one that will steal your breath
About my home in Scotland and it's called Macbeth
And if I know my Shakespeare it is filled with death!
Too-rah-loo-rah-ay.

© 2007 Ron Fink and John Heath

Why Your Students Need to Know Shakespeare

2007-02-22T22:55:00.000-08:00

I know what you're thinking---Shakespeare is taught in high school English classes and so your students don't need to know anything about him. (Did I get it right? Is that what you really were thinking?)

Why am I talking about Shakespeare? Because John and I are in the thick of writing Shakespeare Unshackled (or everything you wanted to know about Shakespeare but were afraid would show up on the quiz.)

Shakespeare didn't invent the English language, but he came at a time when it was rapidly changing. In his plays he invented a vast number of phrases that live with us to this day. And because his plays are consistently performed, I'm pretty sure that the language can never change so much that his language becomes impossible to understand. English didn't freeze after Shakespeare, but it got pretty slushy.

John and I are at the familiar point in writing where words and music are flying back and forth as we critique each other's work and try to find the best way of making the material work. Let me share a chunk of one of John's lyrics. This is sung by a write who is upset that every time she comes up with an expression, it turns out that Shakespeare already invented it.

"Elbow room" and "catch a cold"
"All that glitters isn't gold"
How many phrases can just one guy make?

"Heartsick" "leap frog" "fancy free"
"One fell swoop" "it's Greek to me"
He made up "goodness' sake" for goodness' sake!

"Love is blind" "the game is up"
"Laughing stock" "an, there's the rub"
That "green-eyed monster" has me, you can tell.

"In a pickle" "flaming youth"
"Break the ice" and "naked truth"
They're household words, but that's his phrase as well!

An important part of learning about Shakespeare is knowing something about his time and place. John wrote a lyric to be sung by people in Shakespeare's time:

Things are topsy and they're turvy
We've got plague and we've got scurvy
There are chickens in the bedroom and the dog just drank my tea,

It is noisy and it's smelly
And there's nothin' on the telly
In the wacky world of England in the sixteenth century.

Queen Elizabeth's our ruler
And there ain't nobody cooler
She sent Francis Drake around the world to see what he could see.

Spain's Armada was a baddy
But she said "Now who's your daddy?"
In the wacky world of England in the sixteenth century.

Silly stuff, but as usual, John has cleverly thrown in an awful lot of information that your students will absorb. Sure, they can wait til they're seniors to read Hamlet, but your kids deserve to know something about the most important writer in our English language.

The play is designed for grades 5-high school, and will be released about March 20th. More to come in this blog very soon.

© 2007 John Heath and Ron Fink

Big News: We Don't Sell Plays!

2007-01-22T09:52:00.000-08:00

John and I started writing classroom musicals in 1992 and began publishing them in 1995. But it's only now that we've finally figured out that what we've been writing is best used for quick read throughs and not for performance.

How often can a class perform a play for an audience of families and/or other classes? Most teachers tell us they can do this once a year; and a few do them two, three, or even four times during a school year. But once seems to be the most common.

But how often can your class read through a short piece of literature aloud? The easy answer is there are no limits to this kind of activity. You could easily do it once a week. And that's what many teachers have been doing with our material. They may still present a play as a real performance once or twice a year. But they work with Bad Wolf plays frequently as simple read aloud material that's fun, connects to their curriculum, and dramatically improves literacy.

It took us twelve years to figure out. Wow.
Best wishes,
Ron

Pirates from Grammar Island Emerges!

2006-12-20T09:09:00.000-08:00

It's been too long since the last post, but I was immersed in writing and producing the songs for the new pirate/grammar show. Let me quickly get to the end of the story: the play is out; I think it's one of our best, and if the pre-sale numbers mean anything, we'll have a major Bad Wolf hit on our hands. You can read the first third of the script and listen to sample songs at http://www.badwolfpress.com/pirates_grammar.htm

Okay, back to the story. I last blogged several weeks ago, just before heading off to Austin, Texas for their state gifted/talented conference. As I mentioned, I brought with me a CD of me playing six of the songs for the new play. John Heath, my writing partner, was going to listen to the recording and let me know his opinions.

The recording was absolutely terrible, both in terms of sound quality and performance. But John listened two or three times and gave his approval to 4 1/2 out of the six songs. So I knew I had a significant amount of the writing out of the way. I returned home and began crafting the remaining tunes.

The first deadline was Thanksgiving. Singer/actress Dana Shaw was in southern California visiting her parents for the holiday, and Thanksgiving morning was the last possible time to record her. So I managed to get three of the songs together, notated the tunes, and made rough recordings for her. She came over with one day's practice on the songs, prepared to sing.

Meanwhile I had pretty much stayed up all night recording the instruments for the songs she was about to sing. Here's a link to an mp3 of "I'm the Queen of Pronouns" sung by Dana. (I'll leave the link up until mid-January.) http://www.badwolfpress.com/pronouns.mp3

After a day or two of rest I went back to work. There are a total of nine songs, and I was hoping to get longtime Bad Wolf singer Brenda Tzipori to do five of them. That's a lot for one recording session, even though two of the songs were duets, so she only needed to half of those tunes.

I delivered the rough recordings and sheet music a few days before the session, and she quickly let me know that she didn't like a couple of the notes in one song. Strangely, I had seriously considered her proposed solutions when writing the tune, so I was happy to say, "Go ahead and sing it the way you want to."

When she showed up to perform I had instrumental tracks recorded, but a lot of them were temporary. She could sing to them, but they didn't always sound great; in one song the drum part kind of went crazy a couple of times. Brenda managed to sing everything despite the weird music behind her.

A couple of days later guitarist Mike Fishell was in to play. He had no idea what the music was going to sound like. I just showed him the sheet music, turned on the recording and started telling him what I had in mind. He managed to play on five tunes in just a couple of hours. Here's a link to a duet between a collector of synonyms and a collector of antonyms. Brenda sings the collector of synonym part and Mike's guitar is easily heard.
http://www.badwolfpress.com/antonym.mp3

It's wonderful to be finished with the show and I hope to hear from you soon telling us what you think.

More Pirates! More Grammar! More Fun!

2006-11-12T12:00:00.000-08:00

I'll be leaving in just a few days for Austin, Texas, home of this year's Texas Gifted/Talented conference. It's a big event, and both John and I will be speaking. We've done that for several years in a row, but this time we'll also be having a booth in the exhibit hall.

That makes everything way more complicated. I'll let you know later if it was worth the trouble.

The reason I mention all this is this will be the first time in eight months that John and I will be in the same city. We do most of our writing with email, and sometimes the phone comes in handy too. I've figured out how to email John mp3 recordings of my initial attempts at music writing so he can give a little feedback. (I'm certainly not shy about telling him what I like and what I don't about his lyrics.)

Anyway, I'll be bringing with me a CD of my work on the new pirate/grammar show so we can figure out what's working and what's simply an embarrassingly.

There's a very fine line between creativity and making a fool of yourself.

Just to give you a hint of what we're working on, here's a song lyric sung by the Queen of Pronouns:

I'm the Queen of Pronouns
I'm the queen of "you"
I own "him" and "her" now
"He" is all mine too.

I'm the Queen of Pronouns
"They" will not rebel
"Hers" and "yours" and "ours"
I rule "those" as well.

"Both" and "few" and "some" and "each"
They're the same great part of speech
Pronouns do not need a king
Cause I'm the boss of "everything".

I'm the Queen of Pronouns
"It" is sure to please
"We" and "us" and "others"
I'm in charge of "these."

I lead "them" and "their"
"Someone" serves me tea
IÂ¹m the Queen of Pronouns
"All" belongs to me.

The Pirates of Grammar Island---Arggh!

2006-10-24T11:42:00.000-07:00

John and I have been sending emails back forth, working on developing the structure for this play that we'll be writing really, really soon. I thought you might enjoy John's reply to my latest theories of what pirates could possibly have to do with grammar:

Ron,
I did not nix your vision. I tweaked your mission statement.

These are pirates. They take stuff. Stuff. They scour the seas and rape, pillage, and plunder. It's fun for the whole family.

Pirates don't track down librarians unless the librarian has some treasure they can haul onboard, put in a chest, and bury someplace. That's just what pirates do. Don't ask me why. Personally, I'd invest some of it in a good mutual fund. But pirates have their own code. It's called the Pirate Code. It's topsecret and has something to do with scurvy.

It's just more dramatic to have pirates shouting about finding punctuation than about some guy who knows a lot about punctuation. You have convinced me, however, that they will find people who are keepers of the grammatical treasure. I hope you're proud of yourself. So maybe your ridiculous idea about grammar books is just ridiculous enoughto pass muster. (No, put that back--I said "muster", not "mustard." Where's your head today?)

They gather books about grammar scattered throughout the Caribbean. (And how do YOU pronounce Caribbean? I'll wait to see what I need it to rhyme with.)

Maybe they are HOARDING. Pirates hoard. (I know that because I once knew a pirate who hoarded fruit. Especially pears. I tried to explain that it would just rot, but would he listen? Stupid pirate.)

They are out to capture all the grammar, and that is represented by the big, glorious golden grammar books. Wait a minute. Maybe they aren't hoarding. Maybe OTHERS are hoarding. Do we need a hero to free all the grammar for us common folk? Or are these in fact GOOD pirates out to free grammar from the evil hoarders? I kind of like that--good pirates, robin hoodesque pirates, taking grammar from the evil hoarders of grammar and bringing it to the people. They are from grammar island, after all.

Or if we stay with evil grammar-hoarding pirates, we need some way to free grammar from them (we don't want to end the show with grammar in the hands of evil pirates, do we?). Or maybe they just dump all the grammar in their pot at the end of the rainbow. Good thing I know so much about pirates.
John

It's me, Ron, again. I'll quickly mull over whether these are good pirates or bad pirates and whether pears actually rot when buried in a treasure chest and get back to John. As you can see, we're hard at work, building curriculum for the children of America.

The Internal Organ Hall of Fame

2006-10-15T21:10:00.000-07:00

The big news is that the play is done, and should begin mailing on Monday, October 16. That's two weeks late, and I'm sorry.

But I think you'll be really pleased with the show. It hits the science standards pretty hard and at the same time it's quite funny.

John and I spent hours arguing fine points such as whether the Internal Organ Hall of Fame is located in Cooperstown, NY (near the baseball hall of fame) or whether it's in some other location. Hours were spent debating whether the play would be at the annual induction ceremony or merely a tour of the exhibits. And what body parts counted? Was it internal organs only, or systems, such as the digestive system, the cardiovascular system and so forth?

Most grown men don't debate these questions.

Do internal organs actually sing and dance? (This is kind of like asking how many angels can sit on the edge of a pin, but our answers will be reflected in the play we write. Very, very weird.)

We long ago concluded that we have one the strangest jobs in the country. What we do is take information that students are SUPPOSED to learn and find some way of making it stick in their brains. Catchy music, rhymes, and humor usually do the trick.

John and I went to high school together, and when we were seniors, we had a little booth at a school arts fair. We would write a song about any topic within five minutes. I can't remember the price---probably a couple of dollars. John had a manual typewriter and I brought my guitar and we bashed out a bunch of songs that day for students, teachers and parents.

It's just very hard to believe that we're still doing that, and the goofy stuff we write has been done in at least 40 countries.

We've flown completely under the education establishment radar. We've never been mentioned in any teaching magazine, no state department of education has ever talked to us, no education foundation has ever heard of us. And yet we estimate there have been 80,00 productions of Bad Wolf Plays over the last eleven years.

It's been an interesting ride. What's next? Well, the play Pirates of Grammar Island is due about December 1st, and I guess we better get busy and start writing. But first John and I will have to discuss how this play will work. You should be able to imagine the arguments. However strange you think they'll be, they'll actually be even weirder.

Another day in BadWolfLand.

Help! My Internal Organs Are Late!

2006-10-08T09:22:00.000-07:00

I'm writing this on Sunday, October 8, and the new Bad Wolf play about the human body was supposed to have been published on September 30th. It wasn't, but it'll be out on Tuesday, October 17.

You probably don't want to hear the list of reasons for the delay, so let me tell you about the show. It takes place at the annual induction ceremony for the Internal Organ Hall of Fame, in Cooperstown, NY. (Right across the street from that other hall of fame.) Who will be picked this year? What will the winners (and losers!) say? America wants to know.

I've had a whole bunch of music teachers tell me that their students cannot pick up melodies from an adult male voice, so I sing on just two of the numbers. Brenda Tzipori returns to sing three of the songs. Not only does Brenda have a beautiful voice, she always finds the right attitude for whichever character is singing. This was the 21st show we asked Brenda to record, and John and I absolutely love the way she sings our material.

Last spring we engaged singer/actress Dana Shaw for the first time to sing one and a half songs on Life Cycles. She did really well, and fortunately was in town for a couple of weeks before going back to performing at the Sonora Musical Theater in the Sierra foothills. So she sang three songs on the new show. It's really amazing to hear the contrast in her voice between songs---on the Radio Disneyish "It Takes Our Breath Away" she sounds like a twelve year-old. Incredible.

Mike Fishell came by one afternoon and spent a few hours adding electric guitar parts to a variety of songs. Mike (who is pictured on page 29 of this year's catalog) managed to play rock, bluesy slide-guitar, country, plus a few things I don't know how to describe.

Here's one of John's lyrics for you to check out. The song is sung by the Heart, who has just been selected for the hall of fame. The Heart has a very Hollywood attitude:

I'd like to thank the arteries to start
They carry all the blood to ev'ry part
And I thank the mouth for stallin'
All that high cholesterollin'
I love you dude, I mean it from the heart.

I'd like to thank the veins for hangin' in
They bring all of the blood back here again
Thank my valves for poppin' open
And I thank the hemoglobin
For giving limo rides to oxygen.

Without these supporters
There's not much more that I could achieve
Just heartache and heartbreak
Heartache and heartbreak
And wearin' myself on my sleeve.

I'd like to thank my chambers left and right
I'd like to thank the blood cells red and white
Thank the chest for helping win it
You can tell my heart is in it
I'm so pumped I might skip a beat tonight---
(spoken) Just joking
I'd like to thank you all you're out of sight.
(copyright 2006 Ron Fink and John Heath)

The first third of the script as well as four sample songs will be online at www.badwolfpress.com/internal_organs.htm within a few days. Check it out, I think you'll really enjoy it.

Internal Organ Play Is Coming

2006-09-14T11:00:00.000-07:00

It's been more than a month since my last entry. My mother-in-law has had major heart surgery and a difficult recovery, my wife started school, and I managed to hurt my back.

But really, John and I are working on Name That Internal Organ! The Bad Wolf Guide to the Human Body.

Here's what's going on: we've had all our big discussions about how to do the play, and we decided to set the show at the Internal Organ Hall of Fame. I don't know about you, but the three hall of fames I've ever heard of are for baseball, football, and rock and roll. There are in Cooperstown, Canton, and Cleveland, which leads me to believe that a hall of fame must be in a city that starts with the letter C.

I was telling to my friend Rick Goldman who then told me about his family's visit to Cooperstown, NY when he was about fourteen years old. He and his brother loved baseball, and happily spent days at the hall of fame. And he said the town itself was named after James Fenimore Cooper, it was a very pretty place, and there were some other interesting things in town to see.

So John and I decided to set the Internal Organ Hall of Fame right in Cooperstown. Across the street from that better known institution. Check the town's website: you can purchase one ticket that's good for both halls of fame.

We've set the play at the annual induction ceremony for organs. Who will be brought in this year? The tension is so thick you can cut it with a knife.

John has written preliminary versions of all the songs and I'm just about finished composing. Very soon we'll bring in singers and musicians to make the recording. And Leslie Stahlie is working on the illustrations (in fact her deadline for the cover is tomorrow, September 15.)

It looks like it'll be a lot of fun and also will be heavy with curriculum. I think that's a combination most teachers tell us they want.

I'll get some lyrics for you to check out very soon.

New Catalog, New Plays

2006-08-03T09:56:00.000-07:00

Today is the last day of proof-reading our new catalog. It's also the last chance to second guess every decision we're making, from the plays we've chosen to write, to the photographs selected, all the way to the fonts used throughout.

This catalog is completely new for us, since it's a larger format, with full-color printing throughout. This allows us to use photos of kids putting on plays, and the large size also makes it possible to feature the new and most popular plays while giving less space to the shows that don't sell nearly so well.

We've been lucky to have worked with Mary Ann Goldman, a graphic artist from Savannah, GA, who not only understands catalogs, but she understands Bad Wolf Press. That's an unusual combination. We're equally lucky to have found our photographers Leslie and Richard Stahle, who really know how to take interesting pictures of kids. Leslie has also illustrated our last five plays, and will be doing more this coming year.

After mail surveys of hundreds of customers, and talking to more than that on the phone, we've come up with what we hope are the three plays that will be most useful to teachers this year.
The first is Name That Internal Organ: The Bad Wolf Guide to the Human Body. It'll be aimed at grades 3-7 and will be available September 30.

Next is Pirates From Grammar Island, a show for primary students that will arrive November 30. For years we had requests for a pirate show, but clearly that subject is not part of anyone's curriculum. Finally a brilliant teacher suggested teaching grammar with a pirates theme, and we'll be doing that.

Last is Shakespeare Unshackled, in which we not only teach about the life and times of William Shakespeare, but provide a few scenes that have been Bad Wolfized. (Is that a verb?) In any case, this show for older students will be available February 20, 2007.

The printer will begin working on the catalog the end of this week, and if all goes well it'll be mailed in late August. We'll look forward to your comments.

The Surveys Came Back

2006-07-06T20:39:00.000-07:00

Every May we send out surveys to a sampling of teachers who purchased plays from us during the last year. This year about 300 went out and just over a hundred have returned so far. So that's at least 100 teachers have taken the time to tell us about their experiences with Bad Wolf plays: what they liked, what they didn't.

If only everybody agreed! It doesn't work like that, of course. Years ago one teacher pointed out that we should expect divergent opinions. "That's why there're thirty-one flavors of ice cream."

For example, one teacher who produced "The American Revolution" said, "It was superb. I, the kids, my coteacher, and the parents/rest of school loved it. They were impressed. Best play I've done." Another teacher who did the same play said, "The lyrics were a bit to repetitious at times."

Hmm. Do we have a problem? Another teacher who did "American Revolution" said, "It was very fun. Love most of the music and the humor worked well."

Want to talk about "Geology Rocks?" The very first survey that came back to us complained about this show, "One great joke...but the rest was tedious. This show is a bit lame."

Wow, sounds like we have a problem. But here are some comments from other teachers who did the very same show:
"I thought it was marvelous!"
"Great show---the kids and parents loved it!"
"The students learned the songs quickly and gain a lot of knowledge."
"The kids are loving it."
"Excellent!!! The students learned so much."
"My students loved the whole mystery that centered around a rock theme."
"I enjoyed the music, humor and knowledge base."

So I guess we're good on this play. Right? Wait, another teacher says the songs are "Too slow. Kids can't sing like that...make it upbeat."

John and I have been reading survey results for years, and all we've ever been able to figure out is the great majority of teachers really like the plays. But not everybody. And sometimes a teacher will absolutely love a couple of our plays and then tell us another one is a stinker.

We can't argue. But it's pretty confusing.

End-of-Year Plays

2006-06-09T22:42:00.000-07:00

I've been playing piano for performances of "Jack and the Beanstalk" at my local school every spring since 1992. The play has become a tradition, and every first grade class does it in their own room. And I've been dragging around a portable keyboard and playing for them since the beginning.

Yesterday I rehearsed with the first two classes and today both of them performed for their families.

After the second performance I spoke with one of the parents as we looked at the various props and costume pieces. "I painted those magic beans three years ago," she mentioned. And she did a backdrop a couple of years ago with a big group of kids. I realized that Jack's house was originally built for a performance of "The Three Piggy Opera" around 1991.

Next week I'll work with several more first grade classes. Over the years I've seen this play a really large number of times, and I'm always surprised how moving a good performance is. Unlike most of our shows, this play is genuinely sweet. As one mother told me today, "The reason I always like this play is it has funny parts, but then there are always moments that pull at my heart."

Want to know what I've learned about directing this play? Almost without exception, the teachers that wind up with the best performances stand in the very back of the room (often on a desk) and mouth every song. They don't just mouth the words---the teachers act out the songs---actually they overact the songs. As the musician I look more at the director than I do at the kids, and truthfully many teachers are great fun to watch. But the secret is they have to be in the very back behind (and above) the parents so no one in the audience can see them.

This is big. The teachers who sit with the script in their laps and nod and point at the students during the shows get little performances with little energy. When the teacher mouths every word, it keeps the kids together, it keeps them energized, it keeps them alert.

How come every teacher doesn't do this? I think a lot of them haven't really learned the songs. You can't mouth the words if you don't know them. And other teachers just don't know the power of overacting from the rear of the room.

A Really New Catalog, Part 1

2006-05-13T13:50:00.000-07:00

If you've ever seen one of our catalogs, then you've sort of seen ALL of our catalogs: They don't change very much.

Every one we've ever published is the same size, with one play per page, two color printing, and featuring line drawings from the shows and lots of teacher comments.

There are two problems: it's kind of hard to find what's new, and we don't do a good job of emphasizing our best selling plays.

The simple truth is that some of our plays are much more popular than others. I honestly don't think a show's popularity (or lack of) has much to do with whether it's good or not. Teachers seem to select shows that connect to the curriculum they teach. And if we put out a show that's not the right grade level for that curriculum, or a piece of rarely-taught curriculum, then it's not likely to sell very well.

Sometimes we get lucky. We put out "Character Matters" in the spring of 2005, thinking that probably we'd be lucky to sell a few copies. Instead it turned into our most popular play ever, and it continues in the number one sales position more than a year later.

So we thought we'd build on the success of the character show and we put out an anti-smoking play this January. In our mind, at least, the shows seemed connected. But I guess it was just in our minds---the anti-smoking show isn't selling well at all, despite the fact that we think it may be the best thing we've ever written.

Anyway, the reason I describe all this is to explain that we're moving to a larger page size in the next catalog, so we can start experimenting with showing plays at different sizes. Perhaps the all-time best-selling character play will get a page to itself, while a few plays that are less interesting to teachers will share a corner of page.

It's all an experiment...kind of like the rest of what we do in life.

Next time I'll tell you more about the adventures of the new catalog.

Ideas for New Plays

2006-04-25T22:12:00.000-07:00

We're at the point in the school year where John and I are wondering what in the world to write about.

After you've published as many plays as we have, there don't seem to be any huge holes in the curriculum that we've not touched. Still, we get requests from teachers all the time.

Recently a teacher from Florida insisted that a pirate musical would be hugely popular. Considering the pressure that teachers are under to stick to standards, I'm pretty sure we'll not be doing a pirate show any time soon.

Not long ago a couple of teachers made a great pitch for a musical about Kansas history. We were willing if they could find us a few hundred buyers. They admitted that between the two of them they'd probably buy just one and share it.

So what can we write that would be genuinely useful to the most teachers? Here're a few ideas that we're kicking around:

grammar---this idea gets nods of approval from almost everyone. But what grammar and for what grade level? Is this parts of speech, or how to write a simple essay, or how to make nouns plural or what?

Bullying---anti bullying to be more precise. This might work very well with our "Character Matters" show. The character play is our most popular ever. Of course, that's what we thought about doing an anti-smoking show, and hardly anyone is buying "Dude, Where's My Lungs?" (And the frustrating thing is that "Dude..." may be the best play we've ever written.)

Simple Machines---The first grade teachers here in Camarillo have been pushing for this one for several years. It sounds like fun to me, but I'm unclear whether other teachers work with this material.

Our Bodies---I'm a little afraid with the kind of lyrics John would come up with to describe the digestive process. I think he'd be safe with the circulorty system, but there're so many places for him to offend people! The possibilities are truly amazing.

Shakespeare---Since the "Musical Comedy of Macbeth" doesn't sell very well, why not follow it up with a play that students actually read? Romeo and Juliet comes to mind.

The Civil War---This is the most requested play that we've never written. We'd be willing if only we could come up with some way to lighten up the subject. A horrible bloody war that absolutely forces you to talk about race relations. Remember, we do comedies.

Okay, those are a few of the ideas that we're bouncing around. If you have an opinion, please email me: ron@badwolfpress.com

I'll be looking forward to your comments.

Website #2

2006-04-11T23:55:00.000-07:00

After becoming frustrated with web design companies that I was finding online, I happened to ask a friend who has given us some marketing advice if he knew of anyone. He wasn't sure but promised to get back to me. And a day or so later I received an email from his wife, Mary Ann Goldman, offering to do the work.

I've seen Mary Ann's graphic design work for years and have always been impressed. Plus she knows exactly what we do, and she has a strong understanding of how we reach teachers. I was delighted to say yes to her proposal.

Mary Ann interviewed me over the phone to find out exactly what I wanted to change, what I liked about our site and what I did not. Then together (over the phone because she lives in Savannah, GA and I'm in California) we looked at a number of websites and talked about them. Then she said, "Okay, I think I know what you want. Give me a few days and I'll be able to email you three possible home pages for you and John to look at and pick apart."

To be brief, she did what she said she would. John and I looked at them, argued about what was appropriate for a home page and eventually came up with a list of modifications to what she had done. After a couple of more back and forths, the website was redesigned.

It's not up quite yet, but you should see the changes very soon.

Time for Website Changes

2006-04-03T10:39:00.000-07:00

Bad Wolf is a tiny company, and we tend to do everything ourselves. Our website, for example, was completely put together by me. The only design help was one friend who looked at it a couple of times as it was being built and made small suggestions.

It's a big site and it gets a fair number of visitors, and recently John and I concluded it was time to have some professional help in making it look a little more "real."

It's not hard to find web designers online, and many of them claim that they're used to working with small businesses. That's what we would need, because we certainly don't have the kind of budget that the big companies have. So I started looking at the websites of many design companies and discovered that many of them have terrible designs for their own sites.

If their was a Flash Introduction then I immeadiately crossed that firm off my list. Ditto with companies who had front pages that required me to scroll sideways to read it. It's absolutely incredible how bad many of these sites were.

Several companies had excellent websites, and of course they had links to sites they had designed. So I put together a list of about eight companies whos work seemed strong and filled out their online forms explaining what I was looking for, inviting them to check out our current site and give us a call.

A week later, only one of the eight even bothered to call. And in talking to them, and examining their work, I came to the conclusion that they'd make our site less easy to follow than it is right now.

It's amazing how you can be standing with money in your hand ready to spend and not find anyone who can help you.

More on this soon.

2006-03-06T22:59:00.000-08:00

Life Cycles is completely finished. Since this is our 35th show, the process shouldn't seem like a surprise, but completing the production process always seems like a miracle to me.

Mixing the recording took longer than I expected, as I kept having problems with the volume of the songs. If the music is too quiet, you lose quality, but if it's too loud then it distorts. I had to redo several tracks over and over to get their volume at the optimal level. By the time I was finished, I tried to listen to the recording and found myself so tired that everything sounded awful.

After a full night's sleep I flipped it on and was really delighted with the sound. I'm so impressed with the skills of Brenda, Mike and Dana, and how good they made the recording.

This weekend we had a booth at the California Association for the Gifted conference. We had a sample disc for Lifecycles and a copy of the script, and many of the of the teachers examined it. They seemed very pleased, which makes me think we'll have a play that'll really fit into many classroom situations.

As a side note, I have to mention that an awful lot of people looked over Dude, Where's My Lung, which is our non-smoking play released in January. What we heard a number of times is that the schools have many non-smoking assemblies, which are usually terrible. And given that, who wanted to do more non-smoking material?

Does anyone know how to approach the people doing non-smoking assemblies? Because I think the play is something they ought to know about.

Things Are Happening Fast...

2006-02-26T23:09:00.000-08:00

Since the last post all parts of the musical have been shaping up. Leslie Stahle came up with a fun cover design showing the lifecycle of frogs, and our printer has built the cover around it. I'll inspect the proof tomorrow morning, and then they'll be printing a thousand front covers within the next couple of days.

Meanwhile we tried out a new singer, Dana Shaw, of Moorpark, CA. She sang a solo on the song, "All Parents Are Cute" and did a magnificent job. I'll be looking forward to engaging her services for future recordings.

Ace guitar player Mike Fishell came by on Friday and in just two hours, played on four different songs. He actually put three different guitar parts on one reggae-flavored piece, and dramatically transformed it for the better. I think Mike would have spent eight hours experimenting with different ideas, but I pushed him to do all his recording in an even two hours.

Saturday morning Brenda Tzipori arrived to sing. Brenda has sung on every recording we've done for the last several years. She's had a nasty cold and barely has her voice back. But I think you'd never know that from listening to her performances.

Just this morning Leslie Stahle dropped off the illustrations for the play. This is Leslie's fifth project with us, and her best work by far.

Are we done yet? Not quite. Lyricist John Heath pulled the songs together into a simple script appropriate for grades 1-4. First grade material isn't easy for us, because we tend to get too complicated. But John's script seemed very good. I made a few small changes and sent it back to him.

Meanwhile I still have one song to record completely (I'll be playing all the instruments and singing this myself.) And most of the songs still need some tinkering with. I've scheduled Tuesday as mix day---that's when the original eight-track digital recordings will be mixed down into stereo recordings in the computer. It's not that hard to do, but there are eight songs to mix...and then I have to strip the vocal out of each of them and replace it with an instrumental melody for the "karioke" version. Last of all I have to burn a master CD and sit and listen to every second of it to make sure all the tracks are in the correct order, with no skips or audio distortion.

That's about 40 minutes of listening, so I usually spend the time cleaning my kitchen.

Next Friday through Sunday we'll be in Palm Springs for the California Association for the Gifted annual conference. The Life Cycle books won't be finished, but we'll have a mockup and a CD that people will be able to listen to. I expect we'll start shipping a week from Monday.

Music Shapes Up Quickly

2006-02-16T10:03:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I sat down and made rough recordings of all eight songs for John.

As I went through each song I discovered in many cases that the music wasn't really finished. So I had to finish composing before recording the tune. And in one case I realized that I had never written anything worth keeping. So I wrote music for that song in about fifteen minutes and quickly taped it.

Next step was putting the songs into a computer and making mp3s. Then I emailed them to John so he could see what I'd done with his lyrics. This is always a nervous time for me, as I'm hoping he'll like everything. On the other hand, I'm often unsure about the quality of my work and I really want him to catch the stinkers.

In this case there was one song he absolutely hated. So I've started over this morning on that one.

In several cases he had specific comments, such as, "I like the feel and melody of this song, but the first and third lines of the verse don't seem to work." In this case, the first and third line of the verse were the most distinctive part of the music. Sigh...

So I'm rewriting and I'll phone the changes in to John. Then tomorrow I'll notate the song for the singers and record the songs they'll be doing. I'll have transposed the songs into approriate keys for the kids, since I haven't worried about that so far. Right now the songs are in whatever keys they came to me, which means they might be too high or low for the average child to sing.

The cool part of this is knowing that in a week I should have a finished recording---and by early March teachers across the country will begin receiving their copies to share with their students.

Where Does Music Come From?

2006-02-11T23:01:00.000-08:00

All the lyrics are pretty much written, and I think they're quite good. So now it's my turn to come up with something worthy of the Bad Wolf name. Or at least something that amuses me and is singable by first graders.

A few days ago I was experimenting with trance music. I was trying to write something in a style that I'm not very familiar with. My daughter had shared some tracks on her iPod that she thought would demonstrate the style...and I kept listening, trying to figure out how to make it work.

I worked for a few hours to construct a track using a synthesizer and a computer. It eventually started having the right feel---but it was too close to deadline to finish and turn in (this was a non-Bad Wolf project.)

So I failed...until last night when I realized I could go back to the track and reshape it for one of the Life Cycle songs. I started working on it today, and discovered it was an easy fit to one of the melodies I had already composed for the show.

So at least one and maybe two songs will have a trance feel, which is certainly something different for us. John hasn't heard any of this yet, so he may yet veto it, but I doubt it.

I'm certainly looking forward to reactions from the teachers. And all because I missed my deadline.

First a Trickle...

2006-02-07T09:02:00.000-08:00

"Life Cycles" is going through the normal process of writer's block followed by bursts of material.

Lyricist John Heath kept looking at his list of topics for songs and saying, "There's no way to make this interesting for little kids." After a whole bunch of days, I jumped in and threatened to write the words myself. And I started proposing solutions on how the show could work.

The problem is that for young kids it's very hard to tell a story and also cover a curriculum. In this case I think the curriculum is more important. The kids will like it as long as the songs are fun.

So John has come up with five lyrics in three days. I've written music to three and a half of them. We're moving along nicely.

Here's a first draft of one of the songs:

Creatures have features
That help them survive
If it is snowing
Fur keeps them alive.

Running from lions
It helps to have speed
Creatures have features
That do what they need.

The teeth of a tiger
The smell of a skunk
An elephant's packing
One heck of a trunk.
The polar bear's white and the leopard is spotted
Whatever the habitat calls for they've got it!

Creatures have features
They don't learn in school
If you like swimming
Then fins are quite cool

.Some try migration
And some hibernate
Creatures have features
So they acclimate! [cool word for 6 year olds, eh?]
copyright 2006 John Heath and Ron Fink

Lifecycle Songs

2006-01-20T07:46:00.000-08:00

John Heath and I are going through California standards for grades 1-4, trying to figure out the most important points to turn into songs for this upcoming show. We know that many of you have already purchased this play, so it may seem strange that we're still trying to figure it out.

That seems to be the Bad Wolf Way.

Here's the list of song topics that John's proposed:
1) animals inhabit different environments, are adapted to them.
2) food chain: animals eat plants and other animals; predator/prey
3) sequential stages of life are different for different animals
4) predictability of life cycle: organisms produce offspring of their own
kind that in adult stage resemble adult parents and each other
5) extinction: past, present, future (diversity, mutual dependence)
6) metamorphosis: silk worms, frogs, butterflies
7) Plants: how the get nourishment (roots, leaves)
8) plants: connection between fruits and flowers and reproduction

What do you think? The grade level for this show is 1-4, but we're especially hoping it's useful for grades 1-2, since we don't write that much for the primary levels. We'd like to hear your comments.