The Duane Players, all thinkers of strange and wonderful thinks, will bring Dr. Suess’ Cat in the Hat and others from the page to the stage when they present the musical, “Suessical Jr.” in the high school’s Joe Bena Auditorium on Nov. 1 and Nov. 2 at 7 p.m. and Nov. 3 at 2 p.m.
General admission is just $10 for what promises to be a great production in DCS’s state-of-the-art theater.
It takes more than a village of Whos to present “Seussical Jr.” Here’s a list of the cast and crew for the musical.
From Duanesburg to the jungle of Nool to Kalamazoo, the Duane Players will unlock the imaginations of their audience as they bring the Cat in the Hat, Horton the Elephant, Gertrude McFuzz, Mayzie La Bird, the Whos in Whoville and other Seuss favorites to life during “Suessical.”
The production features a plinker-plunker of many musical styles, ranging from Latin to pop, swing to gospel, and R&B to funk, that are as colorful as the classic books.
“Seussical Jr.” begins with a young girl named JoJo who conjures up the Cat in the Hat with her powerful imagination and is whisked to the Jungle of Nool for a fantastical adventure. JoJo then learns of the plight of the tiny citizens of Whoville, who live on a planet the size of a speck of dust. Their sole protector is Horton the Elephant, who is the only one with large and sensitive enough ears to hear them bipping and beeping and playing their oompahs.
The small world is threatened by Sour Kangaroo and the Wickersham Brothers, who in disbelief that a world could be so small, try to steal the dust-speck so they can cast it into a vat of Beezle-Nut oil. During all of this drama, Horton has not noticed that he has an admirer, Gertrude McFuzz. She blames his indifference on her one-feather short tail and endeavors to find a way to change her looks.
Meanwhile, Horton’s friend, Mayzie La Bird, is bored of perching on her nest, and convinces the watchful elephant to sit on her egg so she can take a vacation. The Cat follows all of these storylines and finally casts the girl into her own as the irresponsible daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Mayor of Whoville, JoJo, who ultimately saves her whole tiny world with one big, imaginative “think.”
“Seussical Jr.” is presented through special arrangement with Music Theatre International (MTI), a theatrical licensing agency that works directly with composers, lyricists and book writers to provide official scripts, musical materials and dynamic theatrical resources to more than 70,000 professional, community and school theaters in the U.S. and in more than 60 countries worldwide.