The Busy Bees Great Adventure

The Busy Bees’ Great Adventure

Environmental preservation and conservation take center stage!

The Busy Bees’ Great Adventure will be the new first component of the Arsht Center’s Learning Through the Arts program, which ensures that all Miami-Dade County youth experience three meaningful touchpoints with the performing arts for free during their K-12 careers. The Busy Bees’ Great Adventure is a live theater performance and learning initiative that aims to educate 30,000 third, fourth and fifth graders on the importance of preserving and conserving the environment.

• The Musical: This original new work was written by Miami-based playwright Ashlee K. Thomas and commissioned by the Arsht Center. The storyline follows a group of time-traveling, hip-hop performing honeybees on a quest to save the planet when they learn about the threats to the environment, including their own possible extinction, and what actions can be taken to prevent our planet’s destruction. For most students, this will be their first live theater experience at their local performing arts center.
• Arts-Integrated Curriculum: The show will be accompanied by state-aligned curriculum created by a collaborative team from the Arsht Center and Miami-Dade County Public Schools. The Center hosts free teacher workshops to share curriculum with elementary school educators from across the county — enabling teachers to carry excitement from the theater production back to the classroom.

About this show:

The Busy Bees’ Great Adventure was dreamed up to spark inspiration toward responsible environmental citizenship. The climate crisis is having a negative impact on the bee population, so The Busy Bees get real, face the problem and use their creativity and music to encourage water preservation, energy efficiency and sustainable consumption. The Busy Bees offer small steps that make a huge impact, and they remind people that individual actions have collective results. As children of this age begin to ponder who they will be when they grow up, The Busy Bees plant seeds that encourage curiosity and motivate us all to use the tools available to us to make our future green.

The Busy Bees’ Great Adventure was imagined, created, and written by Miami native, Ashlee K. Thomas with musical composition by Nico Raimont. The play is directed by Tanisha Cidel, an award-winning Miami-based, actor, director, and teacher.

The creative team features David Diaz (Sound Designer); Lorena Lopez (Costume Designer); Anthony Velazquez (Choreographer); Antoine Khouri (Music Director).