Ari Paltin as the irrepressible Buddy.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\u201cThe idea was inspired by a woman I met at an art opening I was attending with my husband,\u201d Foreman said. \u201cShe has been an animal activist for years and shared with me her frustration with getting the word out about adoption, spay\/neuter, and animal welfare into different communities. There seemed to be a sense of \u2018preaching to the choir\u2019 and that perhaps people were becoming indifferent or used to seeing pictures of suffering animals.\u201d<\/p>\n
Foreman said that to her, the most natural path to communications is through children\u2014after all, she said, pets are usually brought into families because of kids. She asked the woman if she made any attempts to reach children.<\/p>\n
Foreman has an extensive background in acting, writing and teaching. She was the 2008 artist in residence at UCSD\u2019s Thurgood Marshall College and has received grants and awards for her original musical, The Princess and the Black-Eyed Pea.<\/i><\/p>\n
\u201cI also love musical theater and, well, I love a good creative challenge,\u201d Foreman said. \u201cThe more we talked, the more inspired I became to attempt to do something to address the issue in my own small way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Foreman contacted her longtime friend and colleague Carol Weiss and pitched the idea to her. Weiss is an ASCAP-award-winning composer who wrote songs for American Express as the official entertainment for the 1984 Olympics. Among other achievements, she\u2019s been the musical director for General Hospital<\/i> episodes and has been commissioned to adapted classic stories for children and adults for the stage. They then gathered a group of fellow animal activists and visual and performing artists and created The Pet Welfare Project.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was two years ago, and we are thrilled to be partnering with the Children\u2019s Theatre of Long Beach to bring Buddy\u2019s Big Day Out!<\/i> to share with children and their families here in Long Beach.\u201d<\/p>\n
When kids and their parents visit a shelter or a rescue, most of the time they\u2019re taken with the animals themselves and may not know how or why they wound up there. If one of the pets is lucky enough to go home with them, they may learn the general reason for its being in the facility but not the details. Like the poodle Gemma, pets get left behind by their families for a number of reasons and often wind up in shelters. They also are also dumped there in countless litters from unspayed females, confiscated in animal-cruelty cases, and other unfortunate turns of fate. Unless anyone, child or adult, sees it firsthand, words can be cheap.<\/p>\n
![\"May](\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/May_Miata_and_Kumari_Small.JPG\")
<\/p>\n
Mao the cat (May Miata) and Gemma the poodle wonder what crime they’ve committed to land them in a cage.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nBut enough of my own preaching. Go with your family to see Buddy\u2019s Big Day Out <\/i>and immerse yourselves in the play!<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, the combination of entertainment and education is the finest art we can produce,\u201d Weiss said. \u201cThat\u2019s what Buddy\u2019s Big Day Out!<\/i> is\u2014a show written from the heart with a vital message, which I hope the audience will find entertaining, full of music and full of fun.\u201d<\/p>\n
And after you become involved in the story, you may want to get otherwise involved during real time.<\/p>\n
\u201cBuddy\u2019s Big Day Out\u201d is directed by Karole Foreman. The cast and crew are as follows:<\/p>\n
Buddy: Ari Paltin<\/p>\n
Gemma: Kumari Small<\/p>\n
Karl: Marquis Ray<\/p>\n
Pit Bull Pete: Henry Kelly<\/p>\n
Mao: May Miata<\/p>\n
Maxi: Jonee Shady<\/p>\n
Animal Control Officer: Jen Halbert<\/p>\n
Music Director: Owen Lovejoy<\/p>\n
Choreographer: Cameron Shim<\/p>\n
Stage Manager: Ashley Zachary<\/p>\n
![\"BBDOPostcardfull\"](\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/BBDOPostcardfull.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Children and dogs are as necessary to the welfare of this country as Wall Street and railroads.<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n\u00a0~ Harry S. Truman, 33rd<\/sup> president of the United States<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This Sunday,\u00a0Buddy\u2019s Big Day Out! <\/i>will have its Long Beach opening at California Heights Methodist Church in Long Beach.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":66796,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[68],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-1377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pets","tag-the-scratching-post","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1377"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=1377"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"BBDOPostcardSingleImage\"](\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/BBDOPostcardSingleImage.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Ari](\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Ari_Paltin_as_Buddy4.jpg\")
<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n