The leads include Steven Johnson as the Cat in the Hat, recently honored as a Presidential Scholar in the Arts along with the theatre program’s director and one of his mentors, David Montee, as Distinguished Teacher in the Arts. Steven performs his role as the trouble-making Cat with mischievous glee as he gets the daydreaming boy JoJo (a charming, bright-eyed Helene Morse) into tubs of trouble, causes much anxiety as he stomps on possible who-infested poppies, and pops up in a variety of entertaining personas throughout this musical tour of the beloved Seuss books in this show by Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens (Ragtime, Once On This Island).

The primary story follows Horton the Elephant who hears the small whos and patiently sits on a bird’s egg, with several characters from other Seuss books cleverly woven in. Christopher Stahl from Lexington, Kentucky is Horton, and he gets much more out of the loyal elephant character than usual with his acting and his keen sense of humor as poor Horton is ridiculed by his peers, makes some new friends, desperately tries to help them, and occasionally is forced to consider his sanity – and even his own reality.

Other colorful characters include Emily Stout from Steamboat Springs, Colorado as an amazingly fun and flirty and vain Amazing Mayzie La Bird who tricks Horton into sitting on her egg so she can go on an extended vacation, handling her reunion with her egg, and her parting from it, with humor and, in the end, a moment of regret as part of her realizes all she is giving up. Bethany Jeffery (from Cincinnati) is a big voiced and saucy Sour Kangaroo. Local boy William Cotter and Oakland girl Kimberly Diamond make for a good team of quirky parents as the Whoville Mayor and his wife, the wife polite enough to say “thank you” when her husband lets her exit first through their front door (for which she gets on her hands and knees and crawls through, in one of several great uses of Chris Largent’s set). The Wickershams are a humorously mean and funky trio of monkeys consisting of Dan Lin (Gaithersburg, MD), Nicholas Sheehan (Ithaca, NY), and Emily Koch (Sherman Oaks, CA), the latter of which occasionally features higher, feminine vocals that give the other two brothers reason to pause. Emily Grodzik also runs into some gender bending as an evil eagle Vlad Vladikoff swooping down like the Wicked Witch of the West to take Horton’s whos, and later as a judge on a power trip and getting her/his voice as deep as possible (the Cat in the Hat slapping her on the back to help with the deepest note).

Director Robin Ellis and her team made this production work in all areas – great pacing, clever comedy, Judy Harrison’s lively and personality-driven choreography, Rory Baker’s painting of Chris Largent’s set with his gorgeous lighting touches, and Candace Hughes’s enchanting costumes that bring to life lots of whos, a sea full of exotic fishes, and all manner of jungle creatures including many endangered species researched by the cast such as a white-cheeked crested gibbon, an Amur Leopard, a red-eyed tree frog, and even a blue-footed booby bird.

Performed May 7 - 10, 2009.

Rob Hopper
Executive Director
National Youth Theatre

~ Cast ~