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They lurk in yellow nurseries, pink playrooms and blue-papered bedrooms with racecar beds. They sit on bookshelves next to Lego sculptures, soccer trophies and American Girl dolls. They start off crisp and new — immaculate — and soon become dog-eared, picked-at and smudged, but they're loved even more as months and years go by. They make bedtime bearable, jump-start little imaginations and push at the portal to reading fluency, all the while wrapping their readers and listeners together in a warm web of words, images and ideas.
This fall, two of Montgomery County's favorite children's theaters are staging plays for the littlest of theatergoers – plays adapted from beloved picture books.
The color purple
When it comes to "Harold and the Purple Crayon," Adam Roberts was a late bloomer.
"The first time I read it I was a junior in college," the playwright says with a sheepish grin. "My folks read me all kinds of wonderful books when I was a kid – that wasn't on the list!"
Still, when Roberts saw the purple-covered paperback in the bargain bin of a bookstore near the campus of Wesleyan University, he was immediately intrigued.
"I picked it up, not thinking about what I was going to do with it," he says. "I thought, ‘This is so simple: Maybe this is something I could explore.'"
That exploration – "all told, it's 11 years in the making" – has brought Roberts to Adventure Theatre in Glen Echo Park. By the time he graduated from Wesleyan with a bachelor of arts in English, he had transformed "Harold" into a play, performed for the first time during his graduation weekend. After that, he "made a demo recording and submitted it to places," but mostly went about his life, moving to Boston and starting a career in theater marketing.
"I was searching for titles last year," says Adventure Theatre artistic director Michael Bobbitt, who is directing "Harold." At Seacoast Repertory Theater in Roberts' hometown of Portsmouth, N.H., he came across the play: "Two acts and 30 people.
"I called Adam and said, ‘I like your play. Can you make it shorter, and for a cast of six?'"
He could, he did, and "Harold and the Purple Crayon" came to Glen Echo Park. Bobbitt remembers "being a kid and being able to take a paper towel roll and explore the whole world.
"That's the power of Harold: all he needs is a crayon to navigate the world. That's what we do in theater."
Bobbitt notes that "Adventure Theatre and ‘Harold' are both in their mid-50s.
"They haven't aged a bit," he adds.
Scarry story
"Like a visual feast" is how director Krissie Marty describes the set of "Busytown," the Kevin Kling adaptation of Richard Scarry's popular series of picture books, with music by Michael Koerner.
"Tom (Donahue, the set designer) and Andrea ("Dre" Moore, the props designer) did the sets literally like a pop-up book. It's very vibrant.
"People say it all the time, ‘from the page to the stage,' but it really is brought to life."
The tableau is exceedingly jolly: puppets, planes and vehicles on tracks and battery packs – like Lowly Worm in his apple car – and six actors portraying more than 45 characters. Marty, a dancer who came here from Texas 10 years ago to work with Liz Lerman Dance, has choreographed several shows at Imagination Stage. Even as a director, she says, she approaches her characters with a choreographer's eye and a dancer's ear.
"This is a great musical version of Richard Scarry's children's books," she says, noting that musical director Keith Tittermary provides live onstage piano accompaniment during each show. "We're taking characters from the books and bringing them to life with great songs that range from vaudeville to Andrews Sisters-style numbers to ‘Grease' to old-time rock and roll and bluesy Elvis-style singing.
"We're using a lot of physical comedy, personifying animals. That's what Scarry does."
Scarry – the Boston-born illustrator died in Gstaad, Switzerland, in 1994, at age 74 — is known for his attention to detail, and the "Busytown" set reflects that. At the center of the busy-ness is a cat-kid named Huckle, exploring the eponymous busy town in which he lives and learning about its citizens.
Classic lines
That is, perhaps, the common thread between "Busytown" and "Harold and the Purple Crayon." Each details the adventures of a child trying to learn more about the strange and exciting world all around.
Like Scarry, David Johnson Leisk (Crockett was a childhood nickname) was an artist and illustrator. He shared Harold's love of drawing and sailing, enjoying both pastimes until he died at 68 in 1975. Both authors created quintessential very-first-books, in a league of their own with, perhaps, Maurice Sendak to whom Crockett Johnson was a mentor. And while classics like these tend to retain their appeal from generation to generation, they also attract the attention of children's theater experts, who are always looking for ways to bring children and books together, preferably around a stage.
"We're going to get all ages," predicts Imagination Stage's associate artistic director Kate Bryer. "Ideally, we're going to get the 2- to 5-year-old range, but 12-year-olds will appreciate the sophistication of the piece."
This is the first show Imagination Stage has aimed at children as young as 2, and Bryer and her staff are bracing themselves for a new experience.
"Can you really do theater for preschoolers?" she asks, then answers her own question: "It has to be done in a certain way."
She notes that Imagination Stage artistic director Janet Sanford spent time in England and Denmark this summer observing programs for very young theatergoers. "In Europe, theater (for youngsters) is very visual, very movement-based, with very few words."
If that sounds just like a classic picture book, it's no coincidence.
Mom and pop
When it comes to seeking out fun things to do with kids, Bobbitt and Bryer agree: There's no parent like a new parent. All theaters are eager to capture the imagination of another generation of patrons, but there's more to it for these artist-educators.
They know about children from personal as well as professional experience; each can trace the journey a favorite book has made from bedtime story to stage. For Bobbitt, last season's "Goodnight Moon" was deeply sentimental to him, a favorite first book of his now 7-year-old son. Bryer, whose children are older, can't wait to come back to "Busy Town."
"We can enjoy it as a family," she says. "I'll see them remembering those [Richard Scarry] books, and enjoying the music and choreography."
The "Busytown" director sees it all through a different lens.
"I don't have any children," says Marty. "But I have friends who do. I'm excited for them to come and have that experience.
"And when they say, ‘Do it again! Do it again! Do it again!' well, they can.
"It's a great show to come and see again."
Especially when Imagination Stage offers $5 off return tickets. At Adventure Theatre, incentives to "Do it again!" include milk-and-cookies nights, crayon recycling and craft demonstrations – even a special book club performance with post-show activities.
But really, the play's the thing
"We want to counteract the boredom, break out of the routine," says Bryer. "There's so little to do with preschool-age children. I'm hoping they'll come here to see what a great resource we have here."
Two great resources, actually. One to keep them busy, and one they can draw upon.
