The Children’s Theater Festival – Super Saturday – will achieve a milestone March 16 when it reaches its 35th birthday: 35 years of delighting children with actors, puppets, jugglers, comedy theater, storytelling, music, magic, dance, wildly creative performances, caricature artists, tumblers, on and on.

Professional performers from across the country will perform at the Tryon Fine Arts Center, the Tryon Movie Theater and in the parish halls of the Episcopal Church and Congregational Church.

Out on Melrose Avenue, free entertainment will be available all day, and many local talents will take to the community stage as the audience sits in the new amphitheater on the hillside between the fine arts center and the new food court area.

At 12:15 p.m. there will be the traditional parade down Melrose Ave. All the performers will join in, as will children who have dressed up for this year’s costume theme: “Favorite Storybook Characters.”

Mainstage performers will include: Goowin’s Balloowins, Madcap Puppets, Antonio Rocha, Mutts Gone Nuts, The Gizmo Guys, The Tarradiddle Players, Timmy and Susana Abell and Soul Street Dance.

A ticket order form will appear in the Bulletin Feb. 26 for the use of those in the community without children in the local schools; an order form will also be available online to be printed out at www.TryonSuperSaturday.com.

Order forms will be handed out in classrooms, with orders to be filled at the ticket Round Robin Tuesday, March 5. The Super Saturday box office at TFAC will be open 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. March 6-8, 14-15, and all day Super Saturday itself.

Tickets continue to be just $2, keeping the day affordable for families.

For more information on the performers, go to www.TryonSuperSaturday.com.