---

Programme Note

Dinosaur at Large is a short music-theatre work (duration about 25 minutes) designed for performance by eight- to eleven-year-olds. Seven solo parts, several separate chorus groups and a flexible orchestra of classroom instruments give plenty of scope for the involvement of a large number of children of all ability levels.

Dinosaur at Large can very easily involve a cast of at least 60 children, and an orchestra of 20 to 25 players. The Teacher's Notes give suggestions for ways of tackling the piece with smaller groups of children.

The story begins inside the local museum, where Pat, bored by the teacher's tedious explanations, is left alone talking to a baby brachiosaurus. Together they convert a spaceship into a time machine in an attempt to return the brachiosaurus to his own time. On the way they encounter Queen Elizabeth I, Sir Walter Raleigh, Budicca and a Roman Legion. Whizzing faster and still further back in time, they eventually reach the age of the dinosaur, when the brachiosaurus is welcomed home by a crowd of galumphing relations. Tyrannosaurus Rex almost gets the last laugh!


Read about this work at www.maxopus.com