
City of Hamburgers Book
Photo Courtesy of Inkwater Press
Sat., Mar. 19, 1 p.m.: In the puppet show City of Hamburgers, audiences meet Jeffrey. Jeffrey is tired of the same old fairy tales and wants to hear about Grandma’s life growing up in the old country. Imagination, ketchup and mustard flow through the quirky story.  For children of all ages performed with live music and dancing hamburgers.
This performance is part of Brooklyn Public Library’s Saturday Family Programs at the central library in Grand Army Plaza. The performance will be followed by a sing-along and “meet the puppets†Q&A session, as well as other interactive fun and surprises.
Alphabet Arts’ puppet play is based on City of Hamburgers (Inkwater Press, 2008), a children’s book by author Mike Reiss (The Simpsons, Ice Age) and illustrator Xeth Feinberg (Mishmash Media). In City of Hamburgers, a German-born grandmother tells her US-born grandson a story about growing up as a “Hamburger,†marrying a Frankfurter, and later becoming an American. This short (approx 20 minutes), funny and entertaining play makes timely social issues such as tolerance/acceptance of differences, multicultural diversity, immigration and “becoming American†accessible to young audiences while also modeling the importance of oral history and intergenerational storytelling.
Inkwater Press interview here, and Inkwater’s press release here.
Alphabet Arts will continue to tour City of Hamburgers to kid-friendly venues in the future, and to provide post-show hands-on workshops in which young audience members will create “puppet poems†connecting their own stories/words/designs to themes in the play. Youth will have the opportunity to perform their pieces on our puppet stage at the end of the workshop.  For information on (and pictures of) past performances of City of Hamburgers, go to our Past Projects page.
This event is FREE.
Dweck Center, Brooklyn Public Library
10 Grand Army Plaza
http://alphabetarts.org/?page_id=40