The IU Festival Theatre brings Dr. Seuss's wonderful stories and characters to dramatic musical life on the Wells-Metz Stage. Seussical's creators Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens have chosen the Horton the elephant stories of courage and faithfulness along with references to the Circus McGurkus, the Butter Battles and Green Eggs and Ham.
The engaging Jason Craig West is the show's ring master as The Cat in the Hat. Christian Fary is Jojo a sympathetically heroic figure as the keen eared elephant Horton who hears the cries of the people of Whoville, and as the faithful Horton who sits on the abandoned Egg. Andrew Minkin is the brave teenager who rallies all of Whoville to save their small speck of life. Courtney Reed Harris is the strong singing silly Mayzie La Bird who abandons the egg.
The blues belting Mary Beth Black is the Sour Kangeroo leading the Wickersham Brothers against Horton. The brothers, Chad Singer, Roberts Toms and Scott Van Wye were scary as scooter riders and funny as clowns.The empathetic Gertude McFuzz, Semantha Lee Mason was touchingly supportive of Horton. Her bird girls, Meghan Faddis, Kaitlyn Mayse, and Jenny McPherson were always colorfull, graceful additions to every scene.
The pace of the IU Festival Theatre's Seussical is a boisterous one.I sometimes had a hard time figuring out if I was in the more or less real world of Horton or in the mini-world of the Who…Perhaps that's why I'm only now mentioning Cameron Mullin, the scary General Schmitz who recruits the hapless Jojo for the Butter Battle and the outstanding Kaitlyn Louise Smith who plays the mother that sends Jojo off to the military as an antidote to his too active imagination.
Seussical directed and choreographed by George Pinney is a very active production that shows off the talents and the skills of the IU Musical Theatre Program. The music directed by Terry LaBolt ranges from the raggy sound of the twenties to the rock and roll of more recent shows. It can be loud. Saturday afternoon the opening number was a bit too loud for me and there was just too much energy with too many things going on, but then things smoothed out. Colorful and varied costumes are by Aaron Wardwell.
The IU Festival Theatre's delightful production of Seussical continues through August 16.
And indeed, "Oh, the things you can think!"
If you'd like to continue this conversation about theatre my e-mail is glwalker@indiana.edu and you can tweet me @classicalGw
At the theatre for you, I'm George Walker