Lake Region News

The Emmy award-winning TIGER (Theatre Integrating Guidance, Education and Responsibility) program is celebrating its 20th season with new and returning programs.

Since its founding in 2002, TIGER has performed over 2,500 shows, hosted 3,000 student workshops, and has visited over 500 different schools throughout New England. Many of these schools enjoy TIGER year after year, making TIGER a regular part of their extracurricular programming.

For the 2022-2023 season, which kicked off in September, TIGER has partnered with the Jesse Lewis Choose Love Movement to create a performance called “Choose Love,” which was written by TIGER artistic director and coordinator of PSU’s MEd in integrated arts program Trish Lindberg, Ph.D. The performance, designed for kindergarten through sixth grade students, incorporates the tenets of Courage, Gratitude, Forgiveness and Compassion in Action through music, dance and theatre.

So far this season, the group has performed Choose Love and their second production, “Team Up Together,” also written and directed by Lindberg, for New Hampshire schools in Bethlehem, Concord, Gilford, Hudson, Milan and Milford, as well as additional schools in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Vermont.

“We are so grateful that after 20 years of touring New England, children still get excited when the TIGER van pulls up to their school,” said Lindberg. “We are very honored to be partnering with the Jesse Lewis Choose Love Movement and founder Scarlett Lewis this season. The glowing testimonials we have received from teachers, parents, and students about our Choose Love and Team Up Together performances and workshops warm our hearts.”

This season’s cast members are:

• Emily Shafritz: a performer and graduate of the University of New Hampshire, from Vermont
• Matthew Murray: an actor and theater major from Maryland
• Olivia Etchings: a singer and graduate of Manhattanville College from New Hampshire
• Kellen Schult: an actor and graduate of Southern Connecticut State University from New York
• K. Bernice: an actor and music director from New Jersey

Music for Choose Love was primarily written by New Hampshire native Natalie Carmago, a performer and composer. It was scored by New York City musician Evan Waaramaa. Additional music was composed by Cynthia Bizzarro. TIGER was choreographed by Darren Biggart from New York City.

In addition to Choose Love, TIGER is touring another K-6 program entitled Team Up Together, an original musical that has a special focus on social-emotional learning and making good choices. TIGER also offers a popular workshop experience for middle schoolers, called TIGER Think Tank, which helps students process experiences unique to the adolescent years.

Over the past two decades, only the COVID-19 pandemic sidelined the regular touring schedule of the TIGER program, though during that time it quickly pivoted to producing a 20-part educational and entertaining YouTube series for educators and families called “TIGER TIME” which was edited by Fidaa Ataya, an internationally recognized filmmaker, storyteller and PSU graduate.

Last year, TIGER also hit the road in their brand-new van and produced an interactive online program entitled TURBO TIGER, which is still being offered to schools, with original music videos, stories, lessons, book lists, songs and interactive online stories. Plymouth State current and former graduate students Stephanie Fritz, Kirsten Mohring and Christine Lamson, along with current PSU Affiliate Faculty member Fran Page, PSU Teaching Faculty, New Hampshire Arts Laureate and PSU graduate Amanda Whitworth, and former Affiliate Faculty member Lisa Travis, worked alongside Lindberg and many other artists to create TURBO TIGER.

Humble Beginnings – Still Roaring

TIGER began in a hallway conversation between Lindberg and the late Dennise Maslakowski, Ph.D., former director of graduate studies at PSU. With Maslakowski’s blessing and the help of Lindberg’s graduate assistant at the time, Kate Mausolf, currently a teacher in NH School Administrative Unit (SAU) 48, and PSU faculty members Gary Goodnough, Ph.D., and Gail Mears, Ph.D., TIGER was born.

Common Man Restaurants owner and philanthropist Alex Ray provided the first TIGER tour van and then Ray and Sally Grand, a retired graphic designer from Holderness, painted it to look like a tiger in Ray’s garage. Ray also equipped that first TIGER van with a horn that made animal sounds and growled like a tiger.

The troupe collected children’s writings about bullying and wrote songs and a script. They began touring and 20 years and half-a-million children later, TIGER is still roaring. 

TIGER is a professional theatre company designed to help communities proactively address social concerns. The program is a collaboration between the Integrated Arts and the Counselor Education and School Psychology graduate programs at PSU. TIGER’s performances incorporate live actors, movement and music to engage school-age audiences, and are based on the anonymous writings of children. The goal of the program is to transform feelings, thoughts, and behavior to help children and adults understand their own power in resolving social issues that exist in schools today.

Upcoming TIGER performances are scheduled for December in Bethlehem, Concord, Exeter, Nashua and Rumney, as well as Lakeville, Massachusetts and Morrisville, Vermont. In January, shows are booked across New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts and Vermont. Additional performances will be added to the tour schedule throughout the season as space allows. TIGER works hard to accommodate as many schools as it can throughout the touring season, which goes through May.

Schools interested in booking TIGER should contact TIGER Tour Manager Pam Irish at 603-535-2647 or e-mail her at tiger-psu@plymouth.edu.
Original source can be found here.