**** Recommended Canterbury Summer Theatre’s production of A Year with Frog and Toad is a charming little family-friendly musical. Both adults and children will enjoy it. The songs are clever and light-hearted, with just enough humor to keep the adults in the audience awake. I really enjoyed it. 3 ½ Spotlights
A Year with Frog & Toad opens – and closes – when the suitcase-carrying Birds, Lady Bird 1 (Grace Kelly Kretzner), Lady Bird 2 (Kacey Marovich) and Man Bird (Jacob Meza), arrive in early Spring. Frog (Jakob Innes) and Toad (Christopher Conte) are still hibernating, dreaming about each other.
Frog wakes up, all ready for spring. Toad, on the other hand, isn’t ready to get up because he’s still dreaming. When his alarm clock rings, he breaks it and goes back to sleep. When he won’t get up, even for Frog, Frog tricks him into thinking it’s May.
When Frog gets his mail, Toad is sad because he never, ever gets a letter. Frog decides to surprise his friend, so he writes him a letter. He gives the letter to Snail (Jacob Meza) to deliver. Of course, Snail doesn’t move very fast, so his ‘snail mail’ trips across the stage singing The Letter are hilarious.
Over the year, Frog and Toad plant seeds in the spring, go swimming in summer, rake leaves in the fall and go sledding in the winter. Along the way, they visit each other often. Once, over tea, Toad told Frog a story about how his family, Father Frog (Jacob Meza), Mother Frog (Emilie Richardson) and Young Frog (Eva Kreighbaum) face Large and Terrible Frog (Devon Baxa) and scare him away.
One day, Frog and Toad decided to rake leaves – for each other – but after they were done, a mischievous pair of Squirrels (Devon Baxa & Eva Kreighbaum) decide a pile of leaves is the very best place to play! They also have fun with a fast-moving Mouse (Emilie Richardson), a slow-moving but very aggressive Turtle (Devon Baxa) and the very near-sighted Mole 1 (Emilie Richardson), Mole 2 (Devon Baxa) and Mole 3 (Eva Kreighbaum.
When Frog fell off the sled, leaving Toad to go all the way to the bottom of the hill alone, he was so upset, he wouldn’t speak to Frog, at least until Snail finally delivered that letter. At Christmas time they hang their stockings and Frog gives Toad a very special Christmas gift, a new clock.
Some of the fun songs include title song, A Year with Frog and Toad, Getta Loada Toad, Cookies, I’m Coming Out of My Shell, Toad to the Rescue and Merry Almost Christmas.
A Year with Frog and Toad, written by two brothers, Robert (music) and Willie Reale (book & lyrics). The musical is based on the Frog and Toad children’s stories by Arnold Lobel. It premiered in 2002 at Children’s Theatre Company, Minneapolis. It opened Off-Broadway in November, 2002, jumping to Broadway in 2003. The Canterbury Summer Theater production is directed by Artistic Director Ray Scott Crawford.
A year with Frog and Toad runs through July 5th (no show July 4th) at Canterbury Summer Theatre, 807 Franklin Street, Michigan City. Street parking is available and free. Running time is approximately 1 hour, 30 minutes, with an intermission.
Performances: Wednesdays & Thursdays at 2:00 pm, Fridays & Saturdays at 7:00 pm. Tickets are $22, $20 for seniors, $11 for students and military. FYI (219) 874-4269 or e-mail info@canterburytheatre.org