Free Tickets for Family Week Theatre

Westminster Arts Center has been going strong with their Family Series for the past year and a half, entertaining children and families from all around the surrounding Bloomfield area. We are very happy to have Running Rabbit Family Theatre return to the center with this show. RAPUNZEL tells of an impoverished peasant and his wife who, without permission, take crops from the garden of the witch next door. In return for sparing his life, the Witch demands the peasant’s first born child. Three years later, the debt is paid; the child is given the name Rapunzel and is carried off. Locked high in her tower by her overbearing sorceress of a stepmother, Rapunzel longs to experience the outside world.

Rapunzel’s opportunity presents itself on her sixteenth birthday with the arrival of Prince Brian. He whisks the maiden away and the misadventures begin! Sure to be a favorite with Running Rabbit audiences, this clever rendition of the Grimm fairy tale features an enchantress who is herself in search of love, a bumbling valet who awkwardly attempts to assist the Prince in his rescue attempt, and a heroine whose first time encounters with the outside world provide numerous laughable predicaments.

Family Week at the Theatre is an annual statewide event offering free and discounted tickets to attendees, and was developed to encourage families to attend professional theatre together by making the experience affordable, educational and exciting. Across the state, in all 21 counties, young people (ages 5 – 18) will receive free tickets to over 100 performances and special events including free classes, workshops and backstage tours. Since its inception in 1998, the program has served over 45,000 people with professional theatre performances and activities. In honor of its eleventh year, the New Jersey Theatre Alliance is expanding programming beyond one week to make this the most accessible and enjoyable year to date. This year, the New Jersey Theatre Alliance invites residents to experience the month of March in STAGES: Sharing Theatre Arts with Generations through Events Statewide.

Westminster Arts Center is located at the corner of Franklin & Fremont Streets in Bloomfield. To receive a full schedule of events for Family Week at the Theatre (March 8-16, 2008) please call 1-800-THE-ARTS, or visit www.familyweek.com.

The New Jersey Theatre Alliance provides a wide variety of programs and services for the state’s professional theatres and the audiences who enjoy them.

Family Week at the Theatre is a co-sponsored project of The New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts and Discover Jersey Arts. Visit www.JerseyArts.com for more information about other arts programming happening around the Garden State.

Additional support has been provided by Appel Farm Arts and Music Center, Bank of America, The Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation, The F.M. Kirby Foundation, Fund for New Jersey Blind, The Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, The Horizon Foundation for New Jersey, The George Ohl, Jr. Trust, Johnson and Johnson, The New Jersey Division of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, the New Jersey Library Association, New Jersey Monthly, New Jersey State Library, The Prudential Foundation and WNYC.