Leslie Elias, founder and Artistic Director of the Grumbling Gryphons Traveling Children’s Theater, will lead a participatory theater workshop March 7 at 2:30 p.m. at the Litchfield Historical Society.
The workshop will engage participants in a sampling of simple theater games, songs and creative movement. Elias will get everyone up on their feet and having fun with her Native American drum and flute.
“Together, we’ll celebrate together the power of words, sounds, voices and our never ending imaginations,” says the listing for the event sponsored by The Women’s Forum of Litchfield.
See the event listing on Facebook
In addition to her role as artistic director of the Grumbling Gryphons , an award-winning educational children’s theater, Elias is a playwright, actress, storyteller, and theater director who has been teaching drama in schools and public venues for 46 years.
She is the 2023 recipient of the Connecticut Artist Fellowship Award and the 2018 Connecticut Arts Hero Award. In 2018, she additionally won the Northwest Connecticut Arts Council Culture Max Award for Arts Educator.
Elias has been delighting audiences with drama, movement, music and storytelling workshops and performances. Her participatory style engages all on a magical journey full of heroes, tricksters, and our never-ending imaginations, the event listing says.
In the mix are masks, myths, rhythms, chants, dance, song and improvisational movement that get her students and audiences up on their feet and fully engaged. With her flute, drum, and years of experience as an actress and director, she inspires joy and interactive teamwork in timely environmental and multicultural stories filled with compassion, bravery, anti-bullying and healing messages.
Elias trains actors of all ages, recently focusing on young people on the autism spectrum, helping them to build confidence as they navigate the challenges of life. The Grumbling Gryphons, under her direction, won the 2003 Governor’s Art Award and has traveled throughout the U.S. and abroad, performing participatory shows based on environmental themes, mythology, poetry and folklore.
Her plays, including “The Ghost Net: An Environmental Musical of The Sea,” have had an impact on many thousands of school children throughout Connecticut and beyond. She runs an annual Theater Arts Camp every summer in her hometown, Cornwall, CT.
The March 7 workshop is free for Forum and LHS Members, and $10 for non-members.