Critique by my music teacher friend Jerri Shuman, Kansas
Composer/Arranger: Albrecht/Althouse
Link to Purchase:https://www.alfred.com/stone-soup/p/00-23525/
Run Time: 20 minutes; with opportunity for additions
Appropriate for:
✅ Kindergarten
✅ 1st Gr.
✅ 2nd Gr.
___3rd Gr.
___4th Gr.
___5th Gr.
___6th Gr.
Number of Solos: none required, but lots of opportunities
✅ Unison
___2 Part (Independent)
___2 Part (Harmonizing)
___3 Part (Independent)
___3 Part (Harmonizing)
___4 Part (Independent)
___4 Part (Harmonizing)
✅ Performance Track Available
✅ Accompaniment Track Available
___Singer Scores Available
___Choreography Included
Script:
____Rhyming Dialog
✅ Non-Rhyming Dialog (easy)
____Non-Rhyming Dialog (medium difficulty)
____Non-Rhyming Dialog (hard)
Scenery: We did not use any scenery, but did staging to create distance and areas.
Costumes: Most wore nice school clothes. We added “work” wear; carpenter’s tool apron, caps/hats, vests. The travelers wore cloaks/ponchos, slouch hats. We had folk dancers in our “showcase” wearing simple aprons, head kerchief, caps and bowties.
Props: We already had a large cardboard cauldron for a stage prop
Individual Song Information/Suggestions/impressions
Grumpy Everyday-A great opening song, “We’re so happy being grumpy everyday!”
Wouldn’t It Be Nice-Travelers song, but we had everyone sing; ¾ meter. Our travelers entered from a side door, but moved quickly to the stage/microphone. Opportunity for solos or small groups on the verses.
Soup From A Stone– This song requires some staging as the “soup” is made during the song. I used one of the three classes so we could work out the timing for adding all the ingredients to the “pot”. It was most helpful to have a live accompanist on the piano so they could ad lib or vamp until the character had performed their staged task. If using the trax recording practice staging on the stage to work out timing. All classes joined on the chorus.
To Share-Opportunity for small group or solo on verses. Sharing is the theme of the musical. We called it “The Kleenex” song.
Extension: We added a “showcase” as a celebration of the townspeople after they made the soup. We had students play ukuleles, a small group did a folk dance, and we added a song about soup to extend the program.
Look at Old Town Now-finale
From Jennifer Otten: Jerri you have helped me out on more than one occasion. Thank you for sharing!
If you’ve directed this musical, we’d love to hear your thoughts about the musical! Please share!
Sounds Like Fun 