Mermaid Theatre of Nova Scotia’s newest production, Billy Goats Gruff and Other Tales, presents a fresh and engaging reimagining of three cherished children's stories—Goldilocks and the Three Bears, The Three Little Pigs and Billy Goats Gruff. Designed for children ages 3 to 7, this production offers a captivating performance, laughter and wonder for young audiences and will be on our stage Tuesday, March 31 at 6 pm.
Filled with adventure, humor and heroism, the story follows a brave raccoon and clever mouse who are on a journey to collect treasure. Along the way, they unknowingly help the goats, bears and pigs, preventing disaster—without any of the animals ever encountering a true villain.
This imaginative retelling seamlessly interweaves three classic tales into a heartwarming adventure that celebrates friendship and courage.
the stories you love, translated for the stage!
The Mermaid Theatre of Nova Scotia is North America’s leading theatre company producing works for families, located in the small, rural town of Windsor, Nova Scotia, Canada. Each year, Mermaid Theatre presents more than 400 performances for over 200,000 spectators in venues of all sizes. Since 1972, Mermaid Theatre has been creating realistic stage adaptations of iconic children’s storybooks that integrate puppetry, moving objects, original music and memorable visual effects, touring their shows for children throughout the world.
“The Three Little Pigs,” “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” and “The Billy Goats Gruff” are all examples of well-known fables.
A fable is a type of short story that typically involves animals who behave like humans and conveys a lesson or a moral. The moral is the most important part of a fable and is often clearly stated at the end of the story. Fables have been passed down for generations and while they usually include animals, they can also involve other objects in nature, like plants or the wind, that have human characteristics.
In Billy Goats Gruff and Other Tales, puppets are used to bring the stories’ characters to life.
Puppetry is a theatrical art form. Puppets represent characters in the performance and are controlled by people known as puppeteers. While some shows have only puppet characters, others mix puppet characters with human actors or characters portrayed by people. A puppet is an inanimate object that is created to look like a person, animal or imaginary creature for use in theatrical storytelling.
The puppets in this production feature soft-sculpture fabric bodies and cheesecloth-mâché heads, loosely inspired by the 400-year-old Japanese Bunraku (boon-rah-koo) tradition. In Bunraku, there are usually several puppeteers who manipulate the puppet directly and are visible throughout the play rather than being hidden.
In Billy Goats Gruff and Other Tales, there are two puppeteers who control all the puppets that you will see.