Library Lion, a 2006 Candlewick Press image e book written by Michelle Knudsen and illustrated by Kevin Hawkes, not too long ago made its U.S. theatrical debut on the Boston Public Library. The musical is the premiere manufacturing of Adam Theater, co-founded by inventive director Ran Bechor, an award-winning Israeli playwright and theater director who at the moment teaches at Harvard College; and government director Karin Sharav-Zalkind, a designer specializing in inside design.
Library Lion, which introduces a well-intentioned lion who inadvertently causes a ruckus in a library, grew to become a New York Occasions bestseller and was named one in every of TIME Journal’s Prime 100 Kids’s Books of All Time. It has been translated into 24 languages and has greater than two million copies in print worldwide.
The work had a circuitous path from image e book to musical theater manufacturing. Library Lion was initially tailored for the stage in 2013 by Israeli playwright Eli Bijaoui and has since been considered by audiences at greater than 500 worldwide performances.
After Sharav-Zalkind and Bechor met by a mutual pal within the Boston space early in 2023, the 2 bonded over their mutual devotion to creating creative and cultural alternatives obtainable to kids and to the significant impression of introducing them to theatrical productions. Their discussions planted the seed for what grew to become a nonprofit skilled theater, Adam Theater (named after Bechor’s now 10-year-old son, Adam).
Since each founders have been accustomed to Library Lion from studying the image e book to their very own kids, and Bechor is aware of Bijaoui from the theater circuit, he reached out to the playwright to inquire about shopping for the rights to Library Lion, and Bijaoui related Bechor to Knudson.
Cue the Music
Rights obtained, Sharav-Zalkind and Bechor (who serves as director of the Library Lion musical) commissioned Israeli composer Yoni Rechter to create the music for the brand new manufacturing. In addition they lined up Jim Henson’s Creature Store to construct a life-size, three-person lion puppet to headline the present. The set designer is Cameron Anderson, and Kate Brehm is the motion puppet director.
All through September, greater than 1,000 college students from Boston-area faculties attended free performances of Library Lion at BPL, the place areas of the library have been changed into an immersive stage set. The hour-long occasion started on the Grand Staircase of the library’s historic McKim Constructing and moved by two galleries earlier than concluding within the Boylston Room, the primary kids’s studying room in a public library in America.
A stage manufacturing of Library Lion will likely be open to the general public from January 10 to 19 on the Boston Middle for the Arts. Tickets for performances can be found for buy at Adam Theater’s web site.
“Adam Theater has seen excessive curiosity from the local people,” Sharav-Zalkind mentioned of the brand new cultural enterprise. “Now we have recognized a major hole in Boston’s skilled theater choices for younger audiences. Whereas seasonal productions and Broadway excursions go to town, Adam Theater believes that high-quality theater for younger audiences ought to be a constant a part of Boston’s cultural panorama. Adam Theater’s mission is to make sure that each little one within the Boston space has entry to the high-quality artwork they deserve.”
