BEDFORD – What are the mysterious lights over Needmore? Who is the stranger that has come into Bedford? What are their connections to limestone and Lawrence County’s limestone legacy?
Children will be able to find the answers to those questions and discover more about our community’s limestone heritage when Stonegate Arts and Education Center presents an original musical for children, “The Limestone Legacy Mystery,” on Saturday, April 27, 2024. Performances will be at 10 a.m., 11 a.m., and noon in the Brinegar Hall Blackbox Theatre.
The free event will feature young performers, puppets, songs, and more! The musical is written by former educators Becky Muncy and Joe Voris. It incorporates songs and characters Muncy created while teaching, with Voris’s new script and story that included student input.
Stonegate received a grant in 2023 to create and produce the original show. One feature of the grant was promoting local Indiana artists, which this musical has done. In addition to Muncy and Voris, area artists created puppets, animations, and costumes.
“This has been a unique experience because Becky and I have been able to start almost from scratch and create a brand new children’s musical that focuses on our limestone heritage and hits on important character skills for kids,” said Voris. Usually, you’re working on a script someone else has written, and there’s very little room to adapt as needed. But here, we could rework lines and scenes and create a story based on young people’s input.”
The musical features a cast of both young performers as well as adults. They portray local kids, but also characters that Muncy created, including The Professor/a crazy scientist/inventor T- TAP’N- a dancing multi-leg bug, Pinniped the Seal, Merlock the Mouse/she loves Sherlock Holmes and solving mysteries, Wormie/an adventuresome worm, and Greta Gardener, Wormie’s owner. These characters were created to assist Muncy in teaching elementary music at NLCS.
Additional activities will be available for children. A scavenger hunt map will also be given to kids so they and their parents can discover limestone landmarks around the county. Everyone can discover even more at the Land of Limestone exhibit located at Stonegate. This exhibit highlights the history of the limestone industry through displays, photographs, and artifacts.
For more information contact Stonegate at 812-279-8126.
