Laurie MacGregor, Composer
Welcome to the magical world of dragons!
Announcing the 2012 premiere of a musical theatre production —

The Dragons Are Singing Tonight in Minnesota
Design by Sky Brooks


Part I - On the Stage



TigerLion Arts presents

The Dragons Are Singing Tonight


Lyrics by Jack Prelutsky
Music by Laurie MacGregor
Story by Markell Kiefer


Minnesota Boychoir
In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre
Circus Juventas


Markell Kiefer, Director
Laurie MacGregor, Musical Director


January 26 — February 12, 2012


The Southern Theater
Minneapolis, Minnesota



Members of the Minnesota Boychoir, led by Mark S. Johnson,
sing The Dragons Are Singing Tonight at a sneak preview*
in Wayzata, Minnesota on November 1, 2009

Listen to Sample:



The song cycle The Dragons Are Singing Tonight will transform into a theatrical production in 2012, the Year of the Dragon in the Chinese calendar! Presented by TigerLion Arts and directed by Markell Kiefer, the show is a collaborative creation with the Minnesota Boychoir, In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre (HOBT), Circus Juventas, and the Southern Theater. Sandy Spieler, Artistic Director of HOBT, will head a design team of artists, including Sky Brooks and Tyson Lien that will create puppets and masks to be used in the production. The performances will showcase the artistry of Circus Juventas aerialists, as choreographed by Artistic and Executive Directors Betty and Dan Butler. Minnesota Boychoir Artistic Director Mark S. Johnson will conduct the singing children, and musical director Laurie MacGregor will conduct the accompanying ensemble of jazz and classical musicians.

The Dragons Are Singing Tonight is a musical adaptation of former U.S. Children's Poet Laureate Jack Prelutsky's book of poems about dragons. Originally conceived and composed by Laurie MacGregor as a song cycle for children's chorus and an ensemble of professional musicians, the score brings Prelutsky's poems to life with a variety of dance melodies and musical styles including swing, blues, tango, waltz, cha cha cha, reggae, rock, foxtrot, and ballad. The composition premiered in 2006 at the Bernice A. Ray School in Hanover, New Hampshire featuring 475 elementary school students and 14 jazz and classical musicians. Teachers created an integrated curriculum by incorporating dragons into their language arts, social studies, music, and art units, and every student in the school participated in the all-school project.

Director Markell Kiefer is developing a storyline for the Southern Theater production that will tie the songs together. The Dragons Are Singing Tonight explores the loss of belief in dragons, representing a loss of belief in the magic, power, and mystery of the world around us. The production intends to remind us and inspire our children to believe in this magic, power, and mystery in the world, as well as that within ourselves.

TigerLion Arts, a Minneapolis-based production company, celebrates human wisdom and the spirit of Nature through creative works that awaken, inform, and delight.  The organization plans to sponsor school field trips to several weekday matinee performances of The Dragons Are Singing Tonight.


Part II - In the Schools, in HOBT's MayDay Parade,
and at the Lake Harriet Bandshell

The Southern Theater production will coincide with a school initiative that aims to benefit the children in the community through the shared experience of singing. Music teachers in Minneapolis schools will teach a select group of songs from The Dragons Are Singing Tonight to their students, in celebration of the Year of the Dragon and in preparation for a culminating performance in late spring 2012 at the Lake Harriet Bandshell in Minneapolis. Imagine hundreds of children from different schools coming together to sing in celebration of the magic and mystery of dragons, communicating to the audience the simple message to believe! TigerLion Arts will provide sheet music to participating schools, and offer artist residencies with director Markell Kiefer, composer Laurie MacGregor, Minnesota Boychoir director Mark Johnson, and HOBT's puppet and mask artists. Children who have created dragon puppets and masks in schools will be invited to march with their creations in HOBT's 2012 MayDay Parade, which will also feature the masks and puppets designed and built for the production at the Southern Theater.

HOBT's annual MayDay celebration—Parade, Ceremony, and Festival—draws nearly 50,000 people and depends heavily on community involvement during its planning and preparation. The song cycle The Dragons Are Singing Tonight was originally created as a large-scale collaborative work and designed to build community, making it a natural fit with HOBT's MayDay event. Furthermore, Markell Kiefer's vision of transforming the song cycle into a theatrical production at the Southern Theater by means of a collaboration with several artists and organizations is also in the spirit of the composition.

TigerLion Arts invites teachers to join in the vision of building community through music, art, and the voices of children. For more information on celebrating the Year of the Dragon through an integrated Dragons curriculum, school residencies, field trips to the Southern Theater premiere, and participation in the MayDay Parade and Lake Harriet Bandshell performance, please contact Minneapolis Public Schools Comprehensive Arts Coordinator Pat Teske at CLOAKING and Executive Producer Laurie MacGregor at CLOAKING .


*Sneak preview musicians: Elena Orsak, violin; Laurie MacGregor, piano; Jack Ritten, electric bass; Jacob Barczak, timpani; Kylan Duff, glockenspiel

The Dragons Are Singing Tonight from THE DRAGONS ARE SINGING TONIGHT by Jack Prelutsky, illustrated by Peter Sís. Text copyright © 1993 by Jack Prelutsky. Used by permission of HarperCollins Children's Books, a division of HarperCollins Publishers. All Rights Reserved.
Music copyright © 2005 by Laurie MacGregor. All Rights Reserved.