BWW Reviews: Fine Arts Center's KNUFFLE BUNNY: A CAUTIONARY MUSICAL Regales Families With a Tale of Love and Loss

A father goes on an errand to the laundromat, with his pre-verbal daughter in tow. The laundry gets put into the machine but alas, so does the daughter's beloved stuffed bunny. Unable to communicate the loss, the child throws a tantrum, frustrating her father until they get home and mom identifies the crisis. The family races back to the laundromat and fish bunny from the suds. Dad is relieved, the little girl says her first words, and everybody's happy.

Hey, musicals have been made out of slighter plots than this.

Mo Willems' bestselling Caldecott-honor book Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale (pronounced with a hard "k") seems on a the surface a hard subject to musicalize, even for children's theater. After all, there are only three characters (not counting the titular rabbit), one of whom has virtually no intelligible dialogue. But Willems' innate knack for capturing the ways and means of his audience-and their parents-serves him on the stage as well as the page, as demonstrated by this charming production by the Fine Arts Center. Together with composer Michael Silversher, Willems expands his story into an hour-long saga of Dad (Ken Robinson) struggling to prove to his wife (Jen Lennon) that he can handle a simple chore and their daughter Trixie (Lacey Connell) at the same time. "Life is tricky with Trixie" Mom warns in the opening song, and sure enough Dad soon finds himself in over his head as his attempts to bond with his little girl go awry. And that's before Knuffle Bunny tragically vanishes into the washer...

While Silversher's songs aren't particularly catchy, the cast sells them and the story with everything they've got. At the center of the whirlwind of energy is Connell as an endearing Trixie. Dressed in overalls and with her hair pulled into an untidy topknot, she broods, babbles, and rambles all over the stage and house in id-driven toddler chaos. She also gets the show's best song, a lament for her lost bunny that is the most heartfelt outpouring of gibberish this side of a Cirque du Soleil score. The cast is rounded out by Nick Henderson and Sheyna Kissick (cutely credited as "Everything and Everyone Else") who gamely play passerby, a pigeon (young viewers will recognize the bus-obsessed protagonist of another Willems book here), and the laundry that Dad fights off to retrieve Knuffle Bunny in the climax.

Like the best kid-friendly material, Knuffle Bunny is also entertaining for parents in the audience, who will smile and nod knowingly at Dad's hopeless attempts to decipher the needs Trixie cannot yet articulate. The kids ate it all up, getting up to dance with minimal encouragement and helpfully shouting suggestions when prompted by the cast. Even my son, himself not too far removed from Trixie's phase of restless exploration, was entertained for almost the entirety, growing fidgity only during the closing song. Getting a three-year-old to sit still and listen? Now there's the magic of theater.

KNUFFLE BUNNY: A CAUTIONARY MUSICAL is playing at Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center on March 22^nd and 28^th at 6pm, March 24^th and 27^th at 1pm, and March 23^rd, 29^th, 30^th, and 31^st at 1pm and 6pm. For tickets, call 719-634-5583 or visit csfineartscenter.org. The production will also tour local schools beginning in April; contact Scott RC Levy at 719-477-4336 for information on booking.

Nick Henderson, Ken Robinson, Jen Lennon, Shena Kissick, and Lacey Connell

Lacey Connell and Knuffle Bunny