BEAUTIFUL SOUP©
BEAUTIFUL SOUP A Musical
Book and Lyrics by Didi Balle; Music by Mr. Leslie Steinweiss
CONCEPT: A two-act musical spanning the lives of a family of five children from the Boer War to their adulthood on the eve of World War I. Inspired by Victorian children's literature by Dickens, Nesbitt, Carroll, and Kipling, the show weaves music, songs, literary fantasy and school lessons with the roiling imaginations of children left to live on their own.
Act I is set at the English seaside where a family of children, without their parents, have been sent to vacation with their Nanny. The Boer War lurks in the background as it has called both their father, a wartime Chaplin, and their mother, a nurse, away. Stories offer solace and nightmares as the children are forced to grow up on their own, with literature and imagination as their guides. The final scene of Act I transits the 5 children growing up through a song, arriving by the song's end in 1914 London on the brink of WWI. Act II follows the adult children's fractured fairytale lives in London, and on the battlefield, where the dark undertones of childhood literature and dreams reverberate with a "wild and wooly, jumbled up and topsy turvy world in the midst of war."
CAST: Six actors (3 male actors; 3 female actors); a grand piano and an excellent pianist.
Book and Lyrics by Didi Balle; Music by Mr. Leslie Steinweiss
CONCEPT: A two-act musical spanning the lives of a family of five children from the Boer War to their adulthood on the eve of World War I. Inspired by Victorian children's literature by Dickens, Nesbitt, Carroll, and Kipling, the show weaves music, songs, literary fantasy and school lessons with the roiling imaginations of children left to live on their own.
Act I is set at the English seaside where a family of children, without their parents, have been sent to vacation with their Nanny. The Boer War lurks in the background as it has called both their father, a wartime Chaplin, and their mother, a nurse, away. Stories offer solace and nightmares as the children are forced to grow up on their own, with literature and imagination as their guides. The final scene of Act I transits the 5 children growing up through a song, arriving by the song's end in 1914 London on the brink of WWI. Act II follows the adult children's fractured fairytale lives in London, and on the battlefield, where the dark undertones of childhood literature and dreams reverberate with a "wild and wooly, jumbled up and topsy turvy world in the midst of war."
CAST: Six actors (3 male actors; 3 female actors); a grand piano and an excellent pianist.
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COMMISSION: Developed and produced by The Whole Theater in Montclair, New Jersey. Olympia Dukakis, Artistic Director.
PERFORMANCES: Two runs at The Whole Theater, a LORT C regional theatre. Performances at HOME for Contemporary Theater and Art.
AVAILABLE: For license; and/or a ready-to-go production for your theatre. Please contact us for more information.
PERFORMANCES: Two runs at The Whole Theater, a LORT C regional theatre. Performances at HOME for Contemporary Theater and Art.
AVAILABLE: For license; and/or a ready-to-go production for your theatre. Please contact us for more information.