If You Give a Mouse a Cookie

     Following the play, my date produced

     this pencil drawing for me!

Friday past I had a neat date for the theater. We went to Minneapolis, had a terrific lunch and took in a matinee performance. My date was impressed. I bought her a little trinket in the theater’s gift shop as a remembrance and then I took her home to her mommy!
by Charlie Leck

Nothing like a terrific play to lift one’s spirits. This week, at the magnificent Minneapolis Children's Theater, I saw a remarkable production of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. Talk about a play with energy! This, baby, is what the play is all about –E-N-E-R-G-Y!

I give – right here in public – four giant stars to the Children’s Theater Company for its most recent production. Two actors carry the play from beginning to end (with a remarkable, brief appearance of another who plays the mirror image of one of the two stars). They keep up a frantic pace of movement and gymnastics for the entire two acts. The dialogue is good and its clear as a bell.

I checked around and looked at the audience during the first act. Hundreds of children were on the edges of their seats, laughing out loud and giggling mightily and constantly. At times they shouted warnings and advice. My date was hopping up and down and clapping constantly. She gave me absolutely no attention. She only had eyes for the actors.

Reed Sigmund played the boy. He’s a solid, large fellow and the play’s director put plenty of gymnastic movement on his plate. He did a fantastic job matching physicality with the smaller and much lighter mouse played by Dean Holt.

Here you can see a moment or two of the whirlwind action on stage!

At the little gift shop maintained by the theater, I allowed my date to pick out any little trinket she wanted. She bought a little, stuffed mouse and immediately gave him le nom de la renommée, Cookies.

Before the show, the two of us had lunch in the theater’s wonderful little, mezzanine restaurant, which has a delightful children’s menu. We both enjoyed it thoroughly. We sat right along a glass wall that looked out over the entrance to the theater and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Below us we could see some breath-taking chandeliers that really capture a child’s fancy.  

You can visit the Children Theater web site here!

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie (the play) was based on a book with the same title by Laura Jaffe Numeroff (adapted for the stage by Jody Davidson) and directed at the Children’s Theater by Peter C. Brosius. The music was composed by Victor Zupanc.

My little date (my granddaughter) had read the book some time ago and was very interested in seeing the play while she was visiting at my home. She says the book is a winner also.

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