New Victory Arts Break: The Magic City

New Victory Arts Break videos and activities are designed to have your family ready and raring for showtime before you even leave home. Here’s how to use them! All set? Then let’s get creative together and prep your kid for The Magic City with the activities below.

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New Victory Arts Break videos are filmed at the New Victory Theater. We acknowledge that New Victory resides on the seized homeland of the Lenape people and the intertribal territory of many First Nations. We celebrate and pay deep respect to all Indigenous peoples, past, present and future, and we encourage you to learn more about these vibrant communities.

Did You Know?

The Magic City is about dealing with big life changes, not by isolating or escaping, but by revealing our whole selves—including our loves, fears and imaginations—to others. In the show, the main character, Philomena, has always loved creating miniature cities with her big sister, Helen. But what will happen now that Helen is engaged? Take a few minutes to learn more about the show’s artistry and watch a short video trailer.

• The artists of Manual Cinema redefine the word “multimedia.” They use vintage projectors, handmade puppets, live-feed cameras, actors and live music to bring stories like The Magic City to life!
• Manual Cinema is no stranger to the New Victory stage. They were last here in 2022 with Leonardo! A Wonderful Show About a Terrible Monster. Did you see it?
• The Magic City is based on Edith Nesbit’s 1910 novel of the same name, but, as with all smart adaptations, Manual Cinema has made some changes!

Try It Out!

Philomena creates cities out of found objects, and sometimes those objects take on unexpected roles. Take your family on a journey to collect some household items and reimagine their uses with a game of “No, it’s not!”

1. Take a full-body picture of your kid and print it out, or have them draw one! Then cut it out and attach a dowel of some sort, like a chopstick or popsicle stick, to operate it.
2. Find three random items around your home—we grabbed a coaster, a piece of paper and a book—and then decide who will offer prompts (the prompter) and who will use the puppet to act them out (the puppeteer).
3. The puppeteer names each item aloud as they hand it to the prompter. Then the prompter hands it back, declaring that it’s something completely different! It’s helpful to think about what the object might seem like to a puppet-sized person.
   Puppeteer: This is a coaster.
   Prompter: No, it’s not! It’s a pizza.
4. Then it’s up to the puppeteer to interpret the prompt and use their puppet to interact with the item in a new and surprising way!

Take turns switching roles, or create more puppet characters and involve more friends or family members in the game!

Talk About It!

As you make your way to the theater, get your kid in a Manual Cinema mindset with some show-themed conversation starters! Ask them:

• What are some places you like to visit in your imagination?
• When something in life doesn’t go your way, how do you adjust?
• When you are feeling sad, what are some things you do to make yourself feel better?
• What’s your favorite game to play with your friends?

The fun doesn’t have to stop here! Follow along with New Victory Teaching Artists in a few Arts Break videos and activities from the archive, highlighting some of the same art forms Manual Cinema uses on stage.

Play with light and colorful household objects to create a shadow environment with Sam Jay Gold.

Pack some personality into household objects with Siobhan Santini Pellot as she kicks off a playlist of puppetry activities.

Enrich your storytelling with some dramatic lighting and sound design courtesy of Drew Petersen.