A Close-Up Look At People Who Matter : A Couple Acts on a Dream, Makes TAFFY

For years, John Wood imagined a place that would harken back to simpler, better times, reminiscent of his childhood in England.

“I had this recurring dream of coming over a hill, overlooking a valley and seeing a fair,” said Wood, who left England at age 10.

He and his wife, Pamela, found the site in Agoura more than 10 years ago when they performed at the Peter Strauss Ranch. “When a I saw this place it kind of broke my dream,” he said.

Together, John and Pamela--who started the J.P. Nightingale Theatre Company more than two decades ago--realized that they had an opportunity to re-create a kind of a family oriented festival that is nearly extinct.

So began the Theatre Arts Festival for Youth--TAFFY for short--a yearly event that includes music, dancing and theater. TAFFY has been called Woodstock for kids, but to John Wood, it is more like the traveling minstrel shows of long-ago England.

“We are modern-day troubadours,” he said. “The tradition of what we do has been going on for thousands of years.”

The nonprofit group gives away as many as 2,000 free tickets each year to children who are handicapped, abused, underprivileged or from poor neighborhoods.

“I think our goal with TAFFY was to give families something to do together,” Pamela Wood said. “The parents feel they’ve had experiences there they can share. We try to build good memories.”

The Woods, who live with their two children in Canoga Park, have come away with their own memories, such as those of an inner-city school group on their first trip to the ranch.

“The first thing they did was reach down and touch the grass,” Wood said. “There was a lot of symbolism to that.”

The Woods estimate that at least 70,000 people have seen the festival in the 10 years it has been performed.

The Theatre Arts Festival for Youth, which won a Community Partnership Award from The Times Valley Edition earlier this year, is changing the time of the event, from its customary October to May, which better fits the time frame of an English festival, Wood said.

Right before the festival, TAFFY also runs a two-day field trip to the ranch, where children can learn crafts and performance skills.

The field trip and the live, interactive shows by performers at the festival connect with children much better than typical TV or amusement park fare, the Woods said.

“We all go to Disneyland and Magic Mountain,” Pamela Wood said. “But actually, our festival is the only one of its kind that’s pure art. . . . Live entertainment is becoming more and more rare. We wanted to keep that tradition of live theater alive.”

With at least three different stages in close proximity and active at all times--with performances like puppet shows, dance groups, mimes, fairy tales and other storytelling--families don’t have to rush from event to event during the festival, Pamela Wood said.

And the stories have values that can reach children who feel powerless and forgotten, she said. In one story, for example, she plays a tortoise who is picked on but ultimately beats a hippopotamus and elephant in a tug-of-war.

For more information about the Theatre Arts Festival for Youth, call (818) 99-TAFFY or (818) 998-2339.

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