FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Taryn Essinger

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contacts: Taryn Essinger, Public Relations Manager August 16, 2005 (206) 443-0807 x1107, [email protected]

Stefanie Hare, Director of Sales & Marketing (206) 443-0807 x1108, [email protected]

SEATTLE CHILDREN’S THEATRE TO OPEN SEASON WITH BROADWAY MUSICAL

(Seattle, WA)— Seattle Children’s Theatre (SCT) will open its 2005-2006 season on

September 16 with a new version of the Broadway musical Seussical, based on the beloved works of Dr. Seuss. The Tony Award-winning team who created the score for Ragtime, Lynn Ahrens

(playwright/lyricist) and Stephen Flaherty (playwright/composer), wove together many of Dr.

Seuss’ imaginative themes and characters into the original show. The shorter version was reworked specifically for Theatre for Young Audience (TYA) venues, with the blessing and collaboration of Ahrens and Flaherty.

“We believe this new version will have a great impact on the field [of theatre for young audiences],” said Ahrens. “As we have discovered by watching many, many audiences respond to the show, Seussical entertains and amuses adults and children alike, but also provides a great deal of food for thought and conversation. Weaving together more than 20 of Dr. Seuss’ most famous stories and characters, the musical touches on some of his deepest themes—respect for the individual, the power of the mind, our responsibility to the natural world, the meaning of loyalty and parenthood.”

Public performances of Seussical run Fridays at 7 p.m. and Saturdays and Sundays at 2 and

5:30 p.m. at Seattle Children’s Theatre, located at 201 Thomas Street in Seattle. Tickets range in price from $15 to $30 and may be purchased by calling the SCT Ticket Office at (206) 441-3322 or by visiting www.sct.org. Seussical is recommended for ages five and older.

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Seattle Children’s Theatre’s Seussical Page 2 of 4

Seattle Children’s Theatre is only the second theatre to produce Seussical, featuring direction by Jeff Church (SCT’s The Wrestling Season), who is artistic director of The Coterie Theatre in Kansas City, MO. It was Church who approached Ahrens and Flaherty about producing a shorter version of Seussical that would be suitable for professional children’s theatres. Together they created a streamlined show, pared down to the essentials, which is 75 minutes instead of 2 ½ hours, and features 11 actors instead of 30, with 26 musical numbers. The play premiered at The

Coterie last year to sell-out audiences and critical acclaim:

“The Coterie’s energetic new production of a re-imagined “Seussical” is marvelous children’s theater,” wrote Derek Donovan of The Kansas City Star.

Jane Loutzenhiser of The Wednesday wrote: “It is incredibly fun, inspiring, toe tapping and whimsical and boasts an amazingly talented cast. There is much to praise, as it’s an experience you won’t soon forget. It’s utterly engaging with its catchy music, clever lyrics, witty wackiness, impressive talent, colorful set and costumes, and substantial messages.”

Of the rework, Ahrens said: “…the physical production was executed on a small scale, but with great humor and theatricality. Reviews of The Coterie production glowed with praise for its whimsy and restraint, its inventive puppetry, its simplicity, imagination and witty direction. This was a Seussical never before seen, and new doors were opening.”

Ahrens and Flaherty have been collaborators in musical theatre since 1983. They are best known for their 1998 Tony Award-winning score of Ragtime, which also received two Grammy nominations and the Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards; and Anastasia, which received two Academy Award nominations and two Golden Globe nominations. They are also the co- creators of the hit Broadway musical Once on this Island, which received eight Tony Award nominations. In addition, Seussical was Grammy-nominated in 2000. In Seussical, Horton the Elephant and his admirer, Gertrude the Bird, face a series of travails trying to protect the tiny Whos Horton discovered living on a speck of dust. Horton’s neighbors in the Jungle of Nool think he is crazy for believing in the Whos, but that does not deter him from his important mission. The Cat in the Hat narrates this celebration of one of the greatest children’s writers of all time.

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SYNOPSIS

Horton the elephant is a sensitive guy, so sensitive he is the only one who can hear the tiny

Whos living on their speck of dust in Whoville. He pledges to save the Whos from the fickle winds of fate, but his neighbors in the Jungle of Nool all think Horton’s crazy. They play keep-away with

Whoville until it gets lost in a field of clover, but Horton vows to save Who.

Gertrude the Bird, who has a bit of a crush on Horton, tries to get his attention by getting a doctor to add a fabulous flurry of feathers to her tail! Horton, however, has a one-track mind—finding the dust speck before Whoville is destroyed. In his relentless search, he comes across Mayzie sitting on an egg in her nest. Horton agrees to watch over the egg while Mayzie takes a vacation. Now Horton’s in a pickle: how can he find the Whos while sitting on an egg?

Next thing he knows, hunters arrive and capture Horton, egg, nest and tree, and send them off to the circus. Thank goodness for Gertrude, for once she sheds her unneeded feathers she is able to free

Horton and the egg and manages to find Whoville in its field of clover. If only the rest of Nool believed that the Whos existed, they’d be safe from danger, but instead they are taken to court. Judge Yertle the

Turtle finds against the Whos and sentences the dust speck to be boiled in Beezlenut oil.

It’s up to JoJo Who’s big imagination to remind all the people, some short and some tall, that a person’s a person, no matter how small. Through his mighty yawp JoJo manages to reach all the ears in Nool; the inhabitants in the Jungle realize their mistake and pledge to watch over Whoville too. Just as all seems to be resolved, Horton’s egg starts to hatch! A half bird, half elephant is what appears; perfect for Horton and Gertrude to raise throughout the years.

CAST AND DESIGN TEAM The cast for Seussical includes Greg Michael Allen as Wickersham Brother/Mr.

Mayor/Ensemble, Daniel C. Dennis at Cat in the Hat, Elias James Higham as JoJo, Louis Hobson as

Wickersham Brother/Ensemble, Kirsten Hopkins as Gertrude McFuzz, Auston James as Horton,

Lakeetra Knowles as Sour Kangaroo/Ensemble, Ian Lindsay as Wickersham Brother/Judge

Yertle/Ensemble, Bhama Roget as Bird Girl/Mrs. Mayor/Ensemble, Tanesha Ross as Bird

Girl/Ensemble, Pamela Turpen as Bird Girl/Ensemble, and Billie Wildrick as Mayzie La Bird/Marshal.

Joshua Froebe is an alternate for JoJo. David Duvall and Jim Fisher are the alternating pianists; Dave

Pascall is featured on bass and percussion. Art Anderson, Alyssa Keene, Tanesha Ross and John

Silverman are the understudies.

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Seussical features choreography by David Ollington, music direction by Molly Jessup, set design by Gary Wichansky and costume design by Jennifer Myers-Ecton, all of who designed for the original production at The Coterie Theatre. Seattle-based Michael Wellborn and Chris R. Walker will contribute light and sound design, respectively.

A limited amount of $10 rush tickets will be available Friday nights (except for opening night) at the ticket office, located at 201 Thomas Street in Seattle. There will be an American Sign

Language interpreted performance of Seussical for deaf and hard-of-hearing patrons on Saturday,

October 15, at 2 p.m. For more information, call (206) 441-3322, voice, or (206) 443-6938, TTY.

Seattle Children's Theatre would like to thank season sponsor Microsoft and show sponsors

Bureau of Education & Research, 4Culture and Boeing.

Seattle Children’s Theatre, celebrating its 31st season, performs September through June in the Charlotte Martin and Eve Alvord Theatres at Seattle Center. Since its inception, SCT has gained acclaim as a leading producer of theatre, educational programs and new scripts for young people, and was recently listed in the top five children’s theatres in the nation by Time magazine.

SCT has presented 174 plays, 92 of which have been world premieres, and entertained over 4 million children. # # #