Next weekend Hillsborough County adults will have the opportunity to see what their kids have been enjoying in their schools for years.
Stages Productions will perform two free, public shows of “Water Pigs,” a live, interactive water resource and conservation theatre presentation. The first performance is Friday, May 19, at 7 p.m. at the Center Place Fine Arts and Civic Association, located at 619 Vonderberg Drive in Brandon. The second performance is Saturday, May 20 at 11:30 a.m. at the new Tampa Regional Library, located at 10001 Cross Creek Boulevard in New Tampa.
“The Water Pigs” is an original musical that explores water conservation through the eyes of a stubborn family of pigs and one very famous wolf. The story begins when Papa Pig informs his children that their piggish ways have wasted so much water that they must seek greener (and wetter) pastures.
The performances are part of a Water Conservation Education in-school, arts-based project that fosters individual responsibility to protect water resources and conserve drinking water through storytelling and audience participation. The project is cooperatively funded by the Southwest Florida Water Management District’s Alafia River, Hillsborough River and Northwest Hillsborough basin boards, the Tampa Water Department and Hillsborough County Water Department.
Other program partners include the School District of Hillsborough County and the Arts Council of Hillsborough County.
The project, which is in its thirteenth year, reaches more than 65,000 elementary and middle school students and teachers in Hillsborough County public, private and alternative schools with 300 live theatrical performances and associated curriculum materials. A resource kit to enhance the educational value of the program also is given to all participating elementary schools.
This successful program was the model for a similar program in Pinellas County Educate to Conserve Water Through the Arts program.
For more information about the public performances of “Water Pigs,” please call Lynn Norton with the Arts Council of Hillsborough County at (813) 276-8250.