Friday, October 10, 10:05 a.m.-ish: My latest quartet of screenings starts with an adaptation of the beloved children's book Alexander & the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. It's a shame that the title has already eaten up about half my word count, because I now have far less space in which to rave about this surprisingly fantastic family comedy whose unforced cheerfulness is matched by its completely unexpected wit.
"It was third grade," says actor Marc Ciemiewicz, recalling his stage debut. "I went to Catholic school, and it was the Christmas pageant, and I was given the solo for my class - 'I'm Gettin' Nuttin' for Christmas.' And my mom, to this day, still tells the story of the gentleman in the audience who tried to give me a standing ovation ... but his wife pulled him back down."
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.)
