“Phantom Tollbooth” coming to Oklahoma
The Kennedy Center’s Theater for Young Audience on Tour program will bring its latest production to Oklahoma City next year.
The musical “The Phantom Tollbooth,” commissioned by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., will be performed April 20-21 at Putnam City North High School in Oklahoma City.
“The Phantom Tollbooth” marks the 16th Theater for Young Audiences Tour. The tour, which gives children and their families a chance to experience theater, brought its production of “Teddy Roosevelt and the Treasure of Ursa Major” to PC North earlier this year. Those performances weren’t open to the public, but gave thousands of metro area children the chance to see the show.
The seven-month tour of “The Phantom Tollbooth” starts Sept. 30 in Washington, D.C.; the Oklahoma City stop in April will be the last on the tour. The show will travel to 58 cities in 27 states along the way.
“The Phantom Tollbooth” is based on the acclaimed 1961 children’s book of the same name by Norton Juster. It was made into a movie in 1969. Juster’s second children’s book, “The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics,” was adapted by famed animator Chuck Jones and won the 1965 Academy Award for best animated short film.
Juster’s new book, “Sourpuss and Sweetie Pie,” will be released on Oct. 1.
“The Phantom Tollbooth” tells of a boy named Milo who is bored with everything. One day, a tollbooth magically appears in his bedroom and whisks him off on an adventure with a ticking watchdog (literally a dog with a watch in him) named Tock. On his journey, Milo must rescue the Princesses of Rhyme and Reason from the Castle in the Air.
I read “The Phantom Tollbooth” to my older son, Chris, when he was about 10 years old, and it’s a wonderfully imaginative story. Metro area kids are lucky to have the chance to see it played out on stage in musical form.
For more information on the tour, go to www.kennedy-center.org/kctyaontour.
-BAM
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