Based on one of Aesop’s best known fables, this clever story is told from the perspective of a poor farmer’s wife named Gretchen.  When a wayward traveler reluctantly leaves his pet goose in her care, Gretchen discovers that the goose lays golden eggs.  The woman goes on frivolous spending sprees, but her greed for fine clothing and jewelry only grows.  Hoping to get even more golden eggs, she showers the goose with special treats and neglects her hard-working chickens as well as her husband, who remains shoeless.  But her new trinkets of wealth bring Gretchen only short-term satisfaction, and no matter how much she purchases from the merchants at the marketplace, she finds herself always wanting more.  Consumed with greed, the impatient wife plans to cut open the precious goose to extract gold more quickly.  Luckily, the golden fairy that had originally placed the magic spell on the goose arrives just in the nick of time.  She changes the goose back into a regular egg-layer and returns her to the care of the traveler, who always loved his sweet goose for unselfish reasons.  This fun tale is easy to stage and offers the actress playing Gretchen a large role to showcase her talents while teaching the audience that happiness cannot be purchased.