Cenicienta: A Bilingual Cinderella Story

Recommended for grades K-6
Available September 23-October 11, 2024
Length: 50 minutes

Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month with this captivating one-woman bilingual performance that tackles cultural heritage, family, and the power of language.

Ten-year-old Belinda is a budding poet and loves to tell stories, but when she’s stuck in the basement preparing for a party upstairs that her stepmother and stepsisters will host, she’ll have to get creative. In this story within a story, Belinda lives out her version while also re-enacting the classic tale of Cinderella, using whatever objects are at her disposal: napkins, teapots, and doilies, to name just a few. With these everyday items, a healthy dose of imagination, and a love of poetry passed down by her father, Belinda imagines a bigger world for herself. When she learns that the party’s special guest is (real life) writer Gary Soto, Belinda wants desperately to attend the party and share her own writings with Soto.  But to do that, she must learn to stand up for herself and take charge of her life and dreams. Performed by Glass Half Full Theatre.

First offered in 2021-22, we are pleased to provide this exceptional video again free of charge.

“For my students I feel like this exposed them to a whole new type of experience. I don’t know that any of them have gone to a play. The use of found objects as puppets was intriguing to them. The idea that someone could be the only actor in a play was new to them. The majority of students in my class are Hispanic so seeing somebody from their culture that looks like them singing, reciting poetry, and acting was a very important aspect. The bravery shown by the character Belinda at coming out and being seen at the end was awesome as a role model. In our third grade curriculum we had already read in our anthology a story by Gary Soto so that was just the icing on the cake to have an author that we had discussed mentioned in the play.”–  3^rd grade teacher, Rhoda Maxwell Elementary School, Woodland

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