Frog and Toad are great friends. The optimistic amphibian and his grumpy pal were created in the 1970s by Arnold Lobel in a series of I Can Read books.
The story of their adventures together so enchanted brothers Robert and Willie Reale that in 2002 they wrote a musical about the characters.
Their show, titled “A Year with Frog and Toad,” made its way to Broadway the following year and garnered three Tony nominations. Now? It’s coming to Chicago as the opener for the eighth season of Chicago Children’s Theatre at the Ruth Page Center for the Arts. It’s got mojo—as CCT’s debut production in 2006, it’s the most consistently requested of its 20 shows. So after seven years, the company is bringing it back.
The original director returns as well—Henry Godinez, associate professor in the Department of Theatre at Northwestern University, directed CCT’s first production, which was presented at the Goodman Theatre, where he is resident artistic associate.
“That was the full Broadway musical and it ran rather long,” he says, seated in his office on the upper floor of the Goodman on a summer afternoon.”This time we are doing the Theater for Young Audiences version, which has been edited by the authors. They took out two of the slower numbers and now it runs between 60 and 70 minutes.”
“Frog and Toad” is intended for children four and up. “Even some three-year-olds will love the spectacle,” the director says, “and five- and six-year-olds will get the story. Middle school children will enjoy it, whether they admit it or not,” adds the father of two daughters, with a smile. “You try to make them believe they are coming because of their younger siblings.”
Frog and Toad’s soft shoe routines are reminiscent of a vaudeville team. “Think of Bing Crosby and Bob Hope in those old ‘Road’ movies,” he says.
The five-member cast includes veteran actors James Earl Jones II as Frog and Mark David Kaplan as Toad. Shawn Pfautch is Snail, the mail carrier; Christine Bunuan plays Mouse and the young Frog, and Brittani Arlandis Green is Turtle and Mother Frog. The three also make up the chorus.
Rives Collins, specialist in theater and drama for young people in Northwestern University’s Department of Theatre, has particular admiration for Chicago Children’s Theatre. “It is wonderful to take your kids to a show,” he says, “but not just any show. It is very important the show has excellence in writing, acting, costumes, set design. Chicago Children’s Theatre has very high standards.”
He urges adults to seek out the finest for the next generation of theater-goers. “Just as you give your children good food, not food that was bad for them,” he says, “so you should make sure that your children see good theater, with stories which have a doorway in which they can enter.”
Portals can be literal, he says, citing Alice’s mirror, C.S. Lewis’s wardrobe and Harry Potter’s station nine and three-quarters. “But they can also be themes, such as friendship,” he says, “like Frog and Toad, for example, two pals who go through adventures, have misunderstandings and learn that teasing can really hurt.”
It also helps, Collins insists, to have a director like Henry Godinez, his NU colleague, who is also director and curator of the Latino Film Festival, which is held every other year in Chicago. “Henry has theater in his bones,” he says. “He is a practicing artist and he has kids in his own household. He’s just the one to do it.”
“The Year with Frog and Toad” begins in the spring, telling the first story in Lobel’s first book. It traverses the seasons, with swimming, an autumnal ghost story and Christmas, finally concluding with winter. And the director insists audiences will walk out humming, something extremely rare in current musicals.
Godinez doesn’t mind repeating a show CCT has done before. “There is always a new generation who has never seen the show. You can do the classics again and again because the audience is always new. After all, childhood never ends.”
“A Year with Frog and Toad” opens October 9 and runs through November 24 at the Ruth Page Center for the Arts, 1016 N. Dearborn St., Chicago. Single tickets begin at $25. For tickets or information about CCT’s 2013-14 season, visit their website or call the box office at 872-222-9555.
