This page is designed to give you an idea of the overall planning for presenting our program on your campus. This is not all inclusive and nor meant to be a definitive guide, but to help you evaluate our program for your campus.  After booking  and contracting with us two things will happen. One you will be assigned a member of our touring staff to be your campus personal liaison to our program. This individual will be in regular contact with you through the planning process, they will be a member of the casts/staff that will be in your building on the day of your program, available to you as the liaison.  Second of all you will receive a complete packet detailing all aspects of our program. From steps to preparing before our arrival, to when we pull out at the end of our day of your program.  As you read through the following page it looks like a lot of information, but remember this program was specifically created to be successful in school campuses it just takes a little planning prior to our arrival.

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The program is designed with the stage show offered in the morning with up to two performances, then in the afternoon we present up to four 30 to 45 minute "classroom" programs. The following is a brief time synopsis from our arrival to departure.

• We will arrive at your campus the evening prior to our program, we do not need access to the building at that time. We travel with complete living and production facilities and stay overnight on campus prior to the show.

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• The next day, the morning of your program our staff will meet with you to start preparing to load the show into the building this usually occurs around 6 AM.  This is the time that we'll need your volunteer crew to start assisting. We will need a crew of six adults capable of lifting up to 50 lbs. High school students over the age of 16 can be used as crew.  Please talk to our show liaison if you plan on using this option.

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• Depending on your building it can take from 30 to 40 minutes to bring all the equipment into the performance area.

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• At approximately 6:30 our technical director will meet with your district electrician to arrange power for the show.  This this not a complicated process but a very important one. The equipment and staging in our production will not just plug into standard wall outlets.  We help you arranged this in advance with your electrician. 

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• It will take approximately 2 hours total to get the show set up and ready to perform. Once we begin setup, we do not allow students in the performance area for safety reasons.  We do create a few restricted areas for everyone's safety and to meet with our contracted agreement with the manufacturers of our props (we are legally required to protect the workings of our illusions)

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• The performance last approximately 40 minutes. We need 30 in between performances to reset and prepare for the next show. This is also the amount of time we find that it usually takes to move the first group of students out and the new group of students in for the second performance.   

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• Following the conclusion of the second program we will immediately start to load equipment out of the building which usually takes about an hour and a half again depending on your particular building and access.  We usually take lunch break during this time in the day, this is individualized to each building and we will go over these plans prior to our arrival.

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• Our classroom sessions start after the show and they will start regardless of where the crew is on loading out the show the two activities happen independently of each other.

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• We find that the library or similar location is an excellent for the afternoon portion of the day.  We do not recommend doing them in the same room as we performed in the morning for two reasons, part of our staff may still be working with your volunteers to load the show out which can be very distracting. But perhaps most importantly the morning show is a high energy performance, with very different expectations for students than in our afternoon class sessions.  Being in a physical different space really makes the afternoon programs so much more powerful and allows your students to engage fully with the subject matter.

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• The afternoon sessions consist of two components a cooperative learning, problem solving activity for the older students and for the younger students we use a lot of guided discovery activities.  The second part of the afternoon sessions is time to share with the students some of the animals from our program up close. Our class sessions have 4 or 5 animals in the session. Not all animals in our stage show are in the class sessions.

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• During the afternoon sessions our remaining crew will finish with your volunteers loading the vehicles for our departure.

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• We will work with you to plan our departure just prior to dismissal at the end of the day.

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Again, this is not meant to be a complete planning guide for your day, just a quick overview to give you a deeper understanding of our day on your campus.  We will do everything in our power to make sure you have a successful and safe program.  Our program is designed to be presented on school campuses a few hours of planning prior to our arrival is all that is required.  Are we different than a regular school assembly? Yes, we are bringing so much more figuratively and literally. "Elysian" is a full-scale stage production not a school magic show, not just another assembly.  It is not our desire to come in and entertain with a few magic tricks and that be the memory of the day. "Elysian" is about empowering students to become the next stewards of our planet. To teach them to ask question, understand how they can make change happen. To awaken their curiosity and desire for your teaching staff to continue to nurture and grow.  We look forward to the opportunity to inspiring your students and leave them with meaning full memories. This is Elysian!