My Director's Notes

[ghost_light]

Usually when I am deciding on a show to direct for ATY I gravitate towards adaptations of books I remember reading as a child. I have found there is no better way to judge a youth theatre script than seeing if it takes me back to the days of reading under the covers with a flashlight because I could not wait until morning to find out how the story ended.

I have a confession to make, my Best Beloveds: I don't remember ever having read The Just So Stories.

I remember having some of the stories read aloud for story time several years in a row when I was in Elementary school. I know I had The Just So Stories, or at least The Elephant's Child, on record (kids, ask your parents) because I clearly remember running through the house chanting "Great grey-green greasy Limpopo River!" for an entire summer. I'm sure it seemed like a full year to my mother.

That is what pulled me into this adaption of The Just So Stories. As an adult with a liberal arts degree I recognize the literary importance of Kipling's work, but I prefer the image of Rudyard and his family acting out The Just So Stories in their parlor. I like to imagine Elsie, little John and Josephine marching through the house chanting "Great grey-green greasy Limpopo River!" after hearing The Elephant's Child. I hope you will too.

Comments

[gows.livejournal.com]

I--or poisondartfrog had a record with "How the Camel got his Hump" on one side. I don't remember what was on the other.

Even as teenagers, our father would read to us from the Just So Stories. We would sit on the sailbags as we anchored in Prince William Sound and listen in the cold morning dew.

I used "The Cat Who Walked by Himself" as an audition piece for an adult read-aloud volunteer position, and got it. When I opened my mouth, my father's voice came out. :)

[ghost-light.livejournal.com]

That is beautiful.

[impetusofadream.livejournal.com]

Awww man I LOVED that book as a kid! To the point that I left it in the car one day and the heat melted the binding on it and I still kept reading it.

I think my favorite was "How the Rinoceros Got His Skin"... though I did kind of love the Butterfly one too.

I think if you did this it'd be amazing!

*I also seem to remember this book being on Reading Rainbow...but I ended up reading A LOT of books they told me about on Reading Rainbow...so it might be my imagination*

[ghost-light.livejournal.com]

The rhino is in the play, but not the butterfly.

[lilibel.livejournal.com]

I remember owning this big book, filled with big letters and marvelous drawings (this is the cover : http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51ZBXSD755L._SL500_AA300_.jpg) and I adored every lines of it. I had my fav' stories and insisted on reading them to my brother. I loved the Tepuma girl (i think it was Tepuma ...) story and of course the ever so fabulous Elephant Child story.
Last year I was tutoring a french kid and she had to read the Whale story for class and she found the book to be dull, stupid and completely stupid. All the while commenting on how fabulous Edward Cullen and Troy Bolton were. Poor Kipling.

[malinaldarose.livejournal.com]

The only one of those stories that I've read is "The Elephant's Child," because it was included in a book of children's stories that I had when I was little. I just love the sound of "great grey-green greasy Limpopo River."

[trenton22.livejournal.com]

Looking the comments above, I remember the titles, but I'm drawing a blank on the stories. A.A. Milne and Sendak are at the forefront of my memory. Then the Raggedy Ann and Andy stories. Richard Scarry. I think I'll do a post about that. Anyway, I didn't realize you worked in children's theater. Have you ever come across works by Aurand Harris? I did tech at a children's theater where Harris directed some of his works from the time I was 7 until I moved on to paying gigs.

[flouritephoenix.livejournal.com]

The adaptation isn't a folk musical by a guy named Tyler Beattie, is it?

I've got a loose adaptation of The Jungle Book called Jungle Tales about a girl in an abusive home who escapes into Mowgli's world...until she alters things and can't find her way out. (It's kind of a musical, but with only 3 songs.) It's been done at Village Players Theater and Apple Tree Theater both in Chicagoland. That book always did something for me... Just So Stories never struck me the same as that one did. I also was in the Edward Mast Jungalbook version when I was 13, so I love it from that.

[ghost-light.livejournal.com]

It isn't, it is by Joseph Robinette. He is one of my favorite playwrights.