A family adventure
‘The Magical Maple Leaf Mystery’ is an all-ages show running in the Carriage House of Beaconsfield Historic House until Aug. 14
‘The Magical Maple Leaf Mystery’ is an all-ages show running in the Carriage House of Beaconsfield Historic House until Aug. 14.
The little girl in the front row clicks the heels of her pink Crocs together as she waits for the Beaconsfield Children’s Festival to begin.
“I’m excited to see the show about the missing leaf,” says Clare Kasycz of Charlottetown.
She is one of the dozen or so children in the audience at the Carriage House in Charlottetown earlier this month taking in a performance of “The Magical Maple Leaf Mystery.” The show runs Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays until Aug. 14.
And the three-and-half yearold has come with high expectations.
“I think there’s going to be singing and dancing.”
When the show starts, she settles back into her seat. And for the next hour her attention is riveted on the onstage action of Big G (Graeme Zinck) and Rose (Rachel Farmer) of R& G Investigations as they probe the disappearance of the red maple leaf from the Canadian flag.
In their investigations they meet and question a variety of colourful suspects, including a tree from 1767, John A. MacDonald from 1867 and hockey goalie Terry Sawchuk from 1967 along with a furry new friend, Justin Beaver.
It’s all part of a new musical by Andrew Zinck and Sandy Zinck that follows these young detectives as they solve the mystery as well as explore Canadian history through the magic of a time machine.
The magical show was created with the whole family in mind.
“We try to design the show so that very, very small children can take away something from the experience. So they participate and they dance,” says co-creator Sandy.
Filled with original choreography by Wanda Naylor and catchy songs like Hockey, What a Game and More Than a Leaf to Me, by Andrew Zinck, the children are eager to dance and sing along.
See maple leaf mystery, C2