items tagged with Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Judging by the children dancing in the aisles during Saturday’s performance, Circa ’21’s current children’s offering Diary of a Worm, a Spider, & a Fly is a hit with younger audience members. But the hour-long musical also has quite a few laughs for the adults.

When the kids weren’t laughing at playwright Joan Cushing’s fart jokes or Worm describing his sister as having a “face that looks like her butt,” I was laughing at what I assume are director Kimberly Furness’ additions of pop-culture references. My favorite was Worm and Fly singing along to “Carry on My Wayward Son” after being told to “Please enjoy this music while your party is reached” when they call Spider’s cell phone.

The Reader's chief theatre reviewer, Thom White, saw and wrote about 52 area stage productions in 2011. I saw 39 and reviewed 12. Obviously, during our second-annual breakfast chat on the Year in Theatre, there was a bit to talk about.

What happens if you give a mouse a cookie? Nothing good, if you’re the cookie giver. If, however, you’re watching what unfolds by way of the Circa ’21 Dinner Playhouse’s current youth-theatre offering, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, it’s a delightful experience.

Not being a child myself, I can only imagine the delight that kids feel at seeing a much-loved book played out, on stage, before their eyes – which is what's currently happening in the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse's production of Alexander & the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. While I’ve personally never read author Judith Viorst’s work, I do know it’s a popular story among younger readers, and those in the audience during Saturday morning’s performance certainly seemed to like what they were seeing. (They were also at least familiar enough with the source material to be able to shout out the show’s title without a hitch... though I'd bet many could recite much more than that part of the book by heart.)