This year's show is directed by a first time MGP director, Douglas Bailey. His ideas and thoughts behind the show are amazing, so we asked him to answer the question, "why Seussical?:
So for me Seussical is about acceptance of all kinds. The main reason I presented this show to the board was because I think that even though it is presented with characters we all remember fondly from our childhood, the message transcends all ages, colors, and creeds.
Horton faces some pretty dire circumstances as his story unfolds. He's harassed by the citizens of the jungle, he's sold oversees as a freak in a freak show, and ultimately put on trial for his belief that all people deserve to be treated as just that, people. "A persons a person no matter how small" is just one instance of the ideal of acceptance in the play.
Zoom in on Who and we meet JoJo who is a thinker. In the society presented in Who, that in itself is subject to many forms of derision. So much so he is sent of to military school to have the "silliness drilled from his head".
All the while Horton and JoJo struggle with being accepted by their peers, Gertrude struggles with maybe the most difficult kind of acceptance; self acceptance. She is trying to get Horton's attention and goes through a pretty drastic cosmetic change in order to do so. She defies Dr. Dake's declaration that her tail is the right size and grows a bigger one instead. Of course, then she is unable to help her good friend Horton when he is kidnapped because she can't fly.
Eventually these three protagonists overcome all of the terrible and silly things thrown at them. They are aided along the way by the Cat in the Hat, who is encouraging them to stick to the guns and keep being different in a way that only they can be.Is this year's show a little silly? Yes, and we wouldn't have it any other way, but it carries a message that is timeless.
I love this piece of theater and think that there is a lesson in it for everyone who sits in the audience to watch.
Tickets are on sale now through mightygoliath.com.
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