Synopsis
Known by several names, Martina y Pérez is a traditional Latin American and Spanish tale about a beautiful little cockroach who is courted by a Cat, Dog, Rooster, and Mouse -- and later cooks a very dangerous pot of onion soup! Our bilingual version features all the familiar characters (including Ratón Pérez, the "Tooth Fairy" of Latin America) singing catchy songs full of Spanish and English vocabulary.
Preview the script and songs!Key Concepts
Martina y Pérez is a great complement to your curriculum resources in language arts and multicultural studies. And, like all of our plays, this show can be used to improve reading, vocabulary, reading comprehension, performance and music skills, class camaraderie and teamwork, and numerous social skills that they are learning about in the play itself (read about it!) -- all while enabling students to be part of a truly fun and creative experience they will never forget!
Aligned with national standards! View the standards and vocabulary.Publication Info
Author: Lisa Adams and John Heath (Book and Lyrics) and Mike Fishell (Music)
ISBN:
978-1-886588-65-3
© 2016
Bad Wolf Press, LLC
Maria (verified owner) –
<p>My class and I enjoyed the play. It was easy to do, I really liked the idea that it was bilingual. it would be great to have one totally in Spanish. It was the first time many of my parents to see a musical play, they really liked it!</p>
Lili (verified owner) –
We performed Martina y Pérez over the summer with kids ranging in age from 5 to 11. While it played to more of the younger crowd, all of the kids had fun with it. As always, the music was catchy and fun. They loved the animal characters and when Pérez fell into a large cardboard box (our pot of soup). Most of the kids performing attend a dual language (Spanish/English) school, so this play was perfect. Even for the few who don't speak Spanish, it was easy to swap the narrator roles to make it English-only. One of our performances was at a retirement home and it was very well received.
UPDATE: This was my second time doing this play, and I loved it even more than the first time! From the silliness of the characters to the catchy songs, the group of third graders performing enjoyed everything about this play. We have a unique school in that a dual language program is offered, but we also have English-only students. We gave the non-Spanish speakers the option to translate their parts to English and were pleasantly surprised when some of them decided to keep the lines in Spanish. It was an easy switch for those who opted to go that route. We're always looking for ways to incorporate traditions from different Latin American countries into school programs; this play was perfect for that. The bilingual chorus in "Right, Derecha, Left, Izquierda" was a cast favorite!
CTooley (verified owner) –
<p>I was so excited to purchase and produce this play with my third grade class until I presented it to the students. I didn't expect to receive flack from my native English speaking students! I thought, for sure, they would embrace the challenge… Well, I made a deal with them to give it two weeks. They were to listen to the songs and read the script, and then, if they still wanted to do another play, I would change it. We were barely two days in when everything turned around! They became so excited I couldn't contain them. In the end, it became a vehicle for my native English speakers to develop empathy for how difficult it can be for someone to learn a new language. All of my students worked together to help each other make it a great performance. I applaud you Bad Wolf Press for taking on a bilingual play!</p>
Mike Fishell (verified owner) –
The kids were delighted to see the Spanish. One particularly tough kid got all into it and took on a narrator role. Very nice moment!
Maria (verified owner) –
I was very excited to finally see that one of your plays had some Spanish. I have been teaching in the an Immersion School the last couple of years and have been dying to use some of your plays as I have used them in the past and love the musical plays. The audience members have always loved them. The last couple of years I'm in a bilingual Spanish immersion school so I need to have some Spanish in our performances. I was so excited when I saw you finally had one that just came out with some Spanish. In fact it allowed me to not only do that skit but the other one called matter as I felt I had incorporated some Spanish. We had an hour performance and all three grades 15 classes of 3rd-5th graders…..students and teachers loved it including parents. I really hope that you will hire on a translator to transform and make available the other skits that you have with some Spanish. Having both in Spanish and English were a great balance! Thanks again for incorporating educational musicals that are quite entertaining!
Natalie Yoder (verified owner) –
This play was so great. The characters were funny and the songs were some of the best we've bought from this website. We added a few things throughout the play tomake it a little longer, but the parents thought it was hilarious and our Spanish teacher had a great time working with us on it.
Penelope Haskew (verified owner) –
I used Martina Y Pérez as one of two short musicals with my kids this year and everyone really enjoyed it. We let all the kids have animal characters and they loved working the characteristics of their animal into their scenes. They had differing levels of excitement about learning Spanish (I did not attract as many native Spanish speakers as I'd hoped to auditions though we did get lots in the audience) but in the end the kids were really proud at what they'd accomplished. Overall it was a very happy experience for everyone and that's the win in my opinion.
We used shadow puppets for our soup scene and that was a lot of fun, the kids could have spent all day watching each other make shadows the day that I first showed them how the scrim worked and the audience was delighted (initially by the transformation of the house into the shadow screen and then seeing the real Pérez working his puppet).
One adjustment we made was to speed up the tempo of most of the songs. Right Derecha, Left Iziquierda in particular was much more exciting at a quicker pace but I think the Wedding song might have been the only one we didn't nudge.