Jackson Free Press

"You can't stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes."
A. A. Milne, "Winnie-the-Pooh"

The upcoming performance of "The House at Pooh Corner" is much more than an amateur theatrical production. If you want your kids to experience high-quality national theater performances in a historic, family-friendly venue, consider making the trip to Meridian's Mississippi State University Riley Center, a state-of-the-art facility in a beautiful restored theater that dates back to 1889.

Several times per year, the Riley Center offers theater productions designed for students or the whole family in addition to their other programs. One such upcoming performance is "The House at Pooh Corner," based on the Winnie-the-Pooh stories by A.A. Milne, coming to Meridian on Thursday, May 17, at 7:30 p.m. This particular show is most suited for children in kindergarten through fifth grade.

Milne wrote the now-classic stories in the early 1920s for his son, Christopher Robin, who appears as a character—along with his entourage of stuffed animals—in his father's poems and children's stories. Winnie-the-Pooh is Christopher Robin's favorite bear.

"The Riley Center contracts with nationally recognized theater groups to bring the true, live theater experience to Mississippi's children," Riley Center education director Charlotte Tabereaux says. The upcoming performance of "The House at Pooh Corner," for example, will be performed by Richmond, Virginia-based Theater IV.

Other recent Riley Center performances for young audiences have included such shows as an adaptation of Shakespeare's "Macbeth" for middle school and high-school students, although most Riley Center children's performances do target the K–5 age bracket.

It isn't a surprise that students, teachers and families travel to Meridian from places like Jackson, Ocean Springs, Tupelo and Natchez. In fact, Tabereaux is thrilled that more than 15,000 Mississippi children per year experience the Riley Center's excellent arts performances.

In addition to bringing top theater groups to the state, Tabereaux and her colleagues prepare free lesson plans and other educational enrichment materials for teachers to use in their classrooms in the weeks leading up to and following each theatrical performance for young audiences at the Riley Center. The center is a partner with the arts-integration program at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. called Partners in Education.

"Children learn more quickly when you use the arts to teach any subject, and research also shows that they retain the information longer," Tabereaux says about the basic premise of the program.

The Riley Center offers free teacher training through numerous workshops throughout the school year designed to help teachers learn how to integrate the arts into the classroom to teach any subject matter. Continuing education credit for teacher licensure is also available for these workshops with a small fee to Mississippi State University. Teachers who are interested in participating should contact Charlotte Tabereaux at 601-696-2204.

Supplemental educational resources for "The House at Pooh Corner" include a wide range of materials, such as coloring pages, geography lessons, recipes, math activities and vocabulary lessons.

Tickets for the stage adaptation of A.A. Milne's "The House at Pooh Corner" are $10 to $18 and are available through the box office at 601-696-2200. Be sure to arrive early, because Tigger, Pooh and Eeyore will be on the scene at 6:30 p.m. for photos and autographs. The show starts at 7:30 p.m. The MSU Riley Center is located at 2200 5th St., Meridian. Visit http://www.msurileycenter.com for more information.