Theatre News Wire

Emerald City Theatre announces the company's 2011-2012 season adventures, fairy tales, everyday heroines, and one truly disastrous day. With a full four play season of family theatre, kids and their grownups can see some of their favorite characters come to life on stage.

The season opens with the world premiere of If You Give a Cat a Cupcake by the same creative team of If You Take a Mouse to School in 2008. A girl and her cat start with a cupcake and end up on a madcap adventure all over the city from to beach to museum and back to cupcakes.

Emerald City welcomes the holiday season with another contemporary family classic: Junie B. Jones in Jingle Bells, Batman Smells! Everyone's favorite irreverent first grader, Junie B. Jones, finds herself navigating the right thing to do when she gets May as her Secret Santa. Allison Gregory's Junie B. books have found a favored place in homes throughout the country and finally you can meet her up close and personal.

If You Give a Cat a Cupcake and Junie B. Jones: Jingle Bells, Batman Smells will run in reparatory with each other throughout the holiday season.

Break out your best princess or knight costume and join Emerald City for Snow White in 2012. Ernie Nolan's original adaptation surrounds this classic fairy tale with live music and puppets all performed by a vaudevillian theatre plagued by one problem after another.

Emerald City celebrates the most iconic disaster of a day with the opening of Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. We've all had that day that just kept getting worse - gum in your hair, no prize in the cereal box, and the middle seat in the carpool. Sometimes life just isn't fair. No one understands that feeling as well as Alexander in this musical production of the classic picture book.

Snow White and Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day will run in reparatory with each other during the winter and spring of 2012.

In addition to Emerald City Theatre's mainstage season hosted at The Apollo Theatre, the company is expanding its season to serve the youngest part of their audience. May 2012 will mark the opening of the Emerald City Playhouse and the world premiere of Goodnight Gorilla - a performance space and production both specially tailored for the very young, ages 0-3.

The following is the full line-up for Emerald City's 2010/11 Season:

If You Give a Cat a Cupcake
September 17 - January 7, 2012
World Premiere
Recommended for ages 3+
Based on the book by Laura Numeroff
Adapted and Directed by Ernie Nolan

It is important to be hospitable when making news friends. But you might want to be careful, if that new friend is Cat - or soon your entire day will be filled with chasing Cat all over town! What starts with just a cupcake quickly turns into a full-fledged fiasco as Cat leads an escapade from the kitchen to the beach and back again. An Emerald City original play based on the picture book from Laura Numeroff's If You Give a Mouse a Cookie series.


Junie B. Jones in Jingle Bells, Batman Smells!
November 17 - January 8, 2012
Recommended for ages 3+
By Allison Gregory
Adapted from the book series by Barbara Park
Directed by Jacqueline Stone

In Junie B. Jones' world, things are very clear - Christmas means you get presents, elf costumes are awesome, and May is a blabbermouth tattletale. Things are going so well, until Junie B. pulls May as her Secret Santa! With Santa watching her like a hawk, what will Junie B. do? Based on the best-selling Junie B. Jones books.


Snow White as performed by Professor TJ Barker's Troupe of Theatricals
January 21 - June 16
Recommended for ages 3+
Written and Directed by Ernie Nolan

Emerald City revisits its original version of the classic fairy tale of Snow White. After a difficult and lengthy journey from far away lands, TJ Barker's Troupe of Theatricals have arrived in Chicago a little worse for the wear. But the show must go on! The Troupe tells the story as Snow White finds safety from her wicked Stepmother with the seven dwarfs and some magical talking animals. With her Stepmother scheming and a Prince searching, how long can she live quietly in the enchanted forest?


Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
February 18 - June 17, 2012
Recommended for ages 3+
Books and Lyrics by Judith Viorst
Music by Shelly Markham

Some days are just epically horrid. Alexander is having that day-gum in his hair, kissing on tv, railroad pajamas and no one EVEN CARES! In this larger-than-life musical written by the classic picture book's author even the copy machine come alive to conspire against Alexander. And how do you deal with all this frustration? Pack for Australia.


Goodnight Gorilla
Opening May 2012 in the new Emerald City Playhouse
Recommended for all ages
Based on the book by Peggy Rathmann
Adapted and Directed by Ernie Nolan

The Zookeeper welcomes very young children and their grownups into an interactive and tactile world. Step inside the family favorite book Goodnight Gorilla and help Zookeeper put the animals to bed in a gentle performance specially tailored that allows the very smallest to extend their own sense of play. At the Zoo inside the new Emerald City Playhouse there will be permission to chatter and squeal, to wander around, and to touch everything.