The new smash hit children’s musical commissioned and first produced by the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Knuffle Bunny is chock full of adventure, song and gigantic dancing laundry.
KNUFFLE BUNNY: A CAUTIONARY MUSICAL tells a tale of firsts: a stuffed animal's first trip in the laundry, a little girl's first words and a Daddy's first time dealing with his child going “boneless.” It sounds so simple, just a quick trip to the laundromat in Brooklyn with Daddy, Trixie, and her beloved Knuffle Bunny but, before you know it things go horribly, hilariously wrong.
Based on his beloved Caldecott Honor–winning picture book, six-time Emmy Award winner Mo Willems (author of Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! and the Elephant and Piggie books) joins Grammy Award–winning composer Michael Silversher to lovingly celebrate the heart and heartache that can only come from a family visit to the local laundromat. We mentioned the giant dancing laundry, right?
KNUFFLE BUNNY: A CAUTIONARY MUSICAL, directed by Matt Chiorini, will run May 24-June 15 at the W. Carroll Coyne Center for the Performing Arts on the Le Moyne College Campus. School matinees begin May 21!
To reserve tickets for a school matinee, please call (315) 445-4230.
About the playright and lyricist: Mo Willems, a New York Times number one Bestselling Author, is best known for his Caldecott Honor picture books: Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!, Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale, and Knuffle Bunny Too: A Case of Mistaken Identity. His Elephant and Piggie early reader series garnered two consecutive Theodor Geisel Medals and Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! was one of the first inductees to the Picture Book Hall of Fame. Mo's career began in television animation where he created the series Sheep in the Big City, served as head writer for Codename: Kids Next Door, and wrote and animated for Sesame Street, where he garnered six Emmy Awards for writing. His ceramics, wire sculptures, and drawings have been exhibited in galleries and museums nationwide; a comic strip about Mo's experiences during 9-11 for DC Comics resides at the Library of Congress. Radio work includes stints at BBC Radio and NPR's All Things Considered, where Mo occasionally serves as a radio cartoonist. Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Musical is his first play. For additional resources on Mo and his books, please go to pigeonpresents.com.
About the composer: Michael Silversher is a Grammy Award–winning songwriter (Elmo in Grouchland), with three prime-time Emmy nominations, two for Winnie the Pooh and one for the Muppets. In addition to writing the theme songs for Disney's television series Tale Spin and Gummi Bears, he has more than 100 songs in the Disney catalogue, has written more than 42 musical theater works, and has worked extensively with Jim Henson Productions, MGM, Sony, Warner Bros., Kaiser Permanente Educational Theatre Programs, The Learning Channel, the Kennedy Center, Los Angeles Opera, South Coast Repertory Theatre, Mark Taper Forum, and Sundance Institute as musical director of the children's theater and resident composer for the Playwright's Lab. He is co-founder of the West Coast Songwriters' Association. His current projects include all the songs for the Henson/PBS Sprout series Pajanimals and composing the score for Dinosaur Train, now in its second season on PBS (also with Henson).