Category Archives: GO (Upcoming Events)

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The Wicked Witch of the West (Exploring Evil, Ep 1)

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-mefti-14fbe78

We’re kicking off a podcast series called “OutThink the Classics,” part of my own personal quest to contextualize classic pop culture for modern families.

Our first series is “Exploring Evil,” where we will explore the concept of evil in classical kids’ stories. We start this journey with the Wicked Witch of the West– can’t you just hear her theme music now?

Please welcome Family Therapist Lauren Mazzarese and Freelance Arts Manager Lia Kozatch to dig into the iconography and cultural impact of our favorite green witch, and discover some surprising parenting advice along the yellow brick road.

The OutThink Team

Learn more about OutThink Media

Cindy Marie Jenkins, Host & Creative Producer

Lia Kozatch & Lauren Mazzarese, Special Guests

Avi Glijanksy, Podcast Producer

Adam Emperor Southard, Theme Composer (also a fantastic photographer)

Annie Collins, PR & Marketing Manager

Angela Zhong, Logo Designer/OutThink Media

Maria Pasquarelli, Canva Coordinator

Produced by CMJ Communications LLC, DBA OutThink Media

Help us out! Share the trailer here.

Show Notes

1. “How the Bad Guys Teach Kid Empathy,” OutThink Media, 24 October, 2022.

2. Original illustration of Glinda, the Witch of the North, from L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, 1899.

Glinda_in_original_book9y9oj.png

3. Gale Sondergaard’s screen test for the role

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4. “Margaret Hamilton Visits Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,” Fred Rogers Productions, 31 October 2019.

5. Maguire, Gregory, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch, 1995.

6. Holzman, Winnie and Schwartz, Stephen, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, 28 May 2003.

7. Coughlin, Sara, “Cauldrons, Broomsticks & Pointy Hats – A Real Witch Explains These Common Symbols,” Refinery 29, 29 October 2019.

8. “Using Kids’ Media to Teach Emotional Language: Charlie Brown,” OutThink Media, 5 November 2022. 

9. Francis, Ali, “The Myth of the Evil Stepmother,” BBC Family Tree, 21 November 2022.

10. Griffith, D.W. and Woods, Frank E., The Birth of a Nation, 1915. 

11. Van Der Kolk, Bessel, The Body Keeps the Score, 8 September 2015.

Read more

“The Marvels: When the Villain is the Hero of Their Own Story”

 

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Announcing ”OutThink the Classics,” and Series 1: Exploring Evil.

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-cc9fe-14f86ad

OutThink the Classics is a new podcast where my guests and I will activate your brain, and give you the historical and cultural context to decide which stories in pop culture have a place in your life today.

Join us for our first series called Exploring Evil: I’ll talk with experts in mythology, therapy, psychology, and more to show you how villains might be the key to exploring empathy and nuance with the kids in your life.

Produced by OutThink Media, where we offer context and conversations to help you evaluate and curate movies, TV, YouTube, and more. 

Learn more

 

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Fairy Folk Myth in Daily Lives

Parenting milestone for a #musicaltheatre and #fairyfolkmyth nerd achieved: Lil’Pirate Dude is watching the original #IntotheWoods recording. This is during “Giants in the Sky,” a song I sing to him often. He’s confused and keeps looking back at me to start singing. Once I do, all smiles! #parentingnerd #youwillloveSondheim via Instagram http://ift.tt/2t5eNQc
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Why Theater Should Join the Dark Side (of Fairy Tales)

Here’s the second column in my series asking why theaters dumb down their shows for kids. Since this one focuses on fairy tales, I want to share it with my readers here. 

Let’s delve into a pretty common denominator in the world of theater for young audiences (TYA): fairy tales. There is no end to internet lists “revealing” or “discovering” the dark origins of fairy tales, yet it is so surprising that, once upon a time, we actually told children scary stories? Shocking!

Many of the original versions of fairy tales were told to help children and adults confront the very real dangers of their times. Hansel and Gretel is an excellent example and very likely the most well known: it’s famine and hunger that motivate the mother or stepmother (depending on the version) to convince her husband to abandon his children in the woods. Most stage productions hide that part of the tale. It is fear of the darkness inherent in the stories that can cause playwrights to move too far in the other, more saccharine direction, leading to meaningless takes on fairy tales that now feel like the norm. When we remove fear from a fairy tale — or any story — we remove its connection to our lives, and that dumbing down affects theater audiences for a lifetime. Without true connections to our own feelings, fears and joys, why bother attending?

Read more at The Clyde Fitch Report. 

Read Part 1: Why do Theaters Dumb Down TYA (Theater for Young Audiences)?

Caleb Foote and Angela Giarratana in “Hansel & Gretel Bluegrass” (Photo: Cooper Bates)

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Fairy Folk Myth in Daily Lives

So I happen to be editing my new #TalkingTYA column, adding our experience seeing #CuriousGeorge @orlandorep while my son watches @pbskids Curious George. As I shift to researching #HanselandGretel for another writing assignment, that curious monkey attends his first opera: Hansel and Gretel. #fairyfolkmyth #fairytales #syzygy via Instagram http://ift.tt/2nHB69t
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Hard Fantasy vs Soft Fantasy for Children

Patrick Rothfuss profile

Patrick Rothfuss image was taken from this interview.

In that Talks at Google with Patrick Rothfuss from my last post, he answers a question dear to my heart. I usually discuss it in relation to children’s theatre, but it holds. They’re smarter than you think.

Audience Question: How hard is it to make hard fantasy versus soft fantasy for children?

Rothfuss: There’s an unfortunate tendency among people in general to say, oh, I’ll just write a fantasy novel because you can just make stuff up. And that’s wrong, because that’s not – you can just do a bunch of stuff and magic will make it make sense. You can, but that’s not good writing, it’s not good storytelling, it’s not good craft.

In my opinion, similarly, people, sometimes, in the genre, are like, well, boy, I wish I could write YA because then kids don’t know what a plot hole is, they don’t care about consistent characterization, they’re not gonna call me on the million dragons ecology problem that I’ve created, this is not a sustainable eco-structure. But that, in my opinion, is a really egregious cop-out. Because in the same way that food that we feed our children should be actually held to a higher standard than the food you give to an adult, because an adult can say, blech, this is awful, or they can read the label and go, oh, this has terrible things in it and it’s going to make me sick and give me cancer. A kid can’t. 

And so you owe it to kids to actually put more work into this because it’s harder to write short. It’s harder to write simply [sic]. It’s harder to do a lot of these things, and it’s harder to write cohesive, coherent, internally coherent fantasy. And you shouldn’t go to YA thinking, oh, my, this will be way easier. I can just bang out 30,000 words and then go play World of Warcraft.

No.

I do not approve.

But then again, I have not really taken a legitimate crack at YA. I know that it’s hard, but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try for it. That’s my philosophy.”