Super Saturday Brings Children's Theater to Town - TribPapers
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Super Saturday Brings Children’s Theater to Town

Cousins Lily, Ally, Leah, and Badger enjoy ice cream at Super Saturday.

Tryon – A four-decade tradition continued on Saturday, March 16, with the Super Saturday Children’s Theater Festival in Tryon. The annual family event brought nearly a dozen theater acts, musicians, and street performers to Melrose Avenue in Tryon.

Performances took place across six venues around town, with each act lasting only 45 minutes to accommodate young audiences’ attention spans and allow families to see up to four shows in one morning.

Tryon Fine Arts Center hosted acts from Children’s Theater of Charlotte’s School House Rock Live! and Sigmon Theatrical’s Dr. Seuss’s Cat in the Hat. Both acts sold out, and the ages of the crowd spanned more than 80 years from oldest to youngest patrons.

The Tryon First Baptist Church featured high-energy performances from family-friendly comedy and animal antics from Johnny Peers & the Muttville Comix, with comedian Peers joined onstage by a dozen rescued dogs.

Musicians and storytellers Zac Morgan, Heather Forest, and Criss Cross Mangosauce filled additional venues around town. The lineup for the day also included ventriloquist Lynn Trefzger, unconventional sleight-of-hand from N8 the Musician and interactive entertainment from the Soap Bubble Circus.

Tryon resident and long-time attendee Jane Foster appreciated the variety of acts that Super Saturday brings to town for her children and grandchildren.

“It’s nice to be able to expose them to so much,” said Foster. She attended two shows with her grandchildren Olive, 9, and Jada, 17, and enjoyed the free family activities around the festival. Olive had never missed a Super Saturday, even attending as a baby.

Tickets to each of the performances are only $2 per person in a commitment to keeping Super Saturday affordable for all families. According to organizers, this year saw more sold-out performances than ever before.

In addition to the national touring acts, the Super Saturday Community Stage allowed local groups the chance to perform. Throughout the morning, young artists with the PacJAM Junior Appalachian Musicians program and Dance Dynamics dance studio took the stage, along with yoga and belly dance demonstrations from Foothills Music studio.

The morning was completed by balloon, chalk and paper-cutting artists, jugglers, and stilt walkers along Melrose Avenue in addition to local nonprofits.

In the middle of the afternoon, Super Saturday’s signature parade filled the street with each of the performers, a marching band from Polk County Schools, and attendees in costume. Hundreds lined the avenue for the parade to celebrate local arts and enjoy the afternoon.

“When it’s a beautiful day like this, it doesn’t get much better than Super Saturday,” said Marianne Carruth, executive director of the Tryon Fine Arts Center, one of the festival’s main venues. Carruth and her family have been involved with Super Saturday since the early years. “I love that they’ve truly kept the festival local. It could have grown into something huge, but it’s always been about the community.”

Super Saturday started in March 1979 as a way to provide enrichment and arts opportunities for the rural community. It is led by a volunteer committee and made possible by grants from the Polk County Community Foundation and sponsorships from area businesses. Now in its 45th year, the festival has seen multiple generations of families attend each year.

Super Saturday Children’s Theater Festival will return on the third Saturday of March 2025. More information is available at www.tryonsupersaturday.com.