This was a hoot! Howard Cable was “Composer in the Classroom” (an Ontario Arts Council project) in 1972, and could find little material for senior elementary students. So we spent an afternoon brain-storming and out popped Rana! The show was presented at a large number of Ontario schools and beyond, and so began my frog collection as each school presented me with a frog memento.
Today, I continue to run into grown-ups who fondly remember playing Gregory Goormay (lover of frogs legs) or Bill Bord back in public school, not to mention scene painters or prop makers. My Dad contributed the lyrics for The Clean-Up Hoedown. Published in 1974, Rana went into a 2nd printing in 1993 and is now available through Counterpoint Music https://cpmusiclibrary.ca/product/ranas-pond-cable-perf-part. This “little frog who could” saw a flurry of activity with Alberta productions in 2009, ’10 and ’11, and I found a school’s YouTube posting from 2015: Rana’s anti-pollution message is (sadly) still relevant today.
