THE WORLD'S STRONGEST LIBRARIAN to be Presented at Sierra Madre Playhouse

Sierra Madre Playhouse is reviving its Off the Page series of free, in-person staged play readings with The World's Strongest Librarian. It is being presented in association with Sierra Madre Public Library's "One Book, One City" celebration of the library-themed book The Midnight Library by Matt Haig.

The World's Strongest Librarian is a play about the power of books, muscles and human kindness. Josh is the children's librarian at a poor public library facing a huge budget crisis. He's also a power lifter, pumping iron in the library basement and running a video blog about young adult and children's books, weights and life. Kids flock to his unconventional story time and check out books by the dozens. All but one kid, that is-a loner named Mr. T, who has the loud tics of Tourette syndrome. Slowly, Josh and Mr. T form a friendship, and Mr. T finally ventures to Josh's basement gym, where a friendship is born. The stakes go up when the town says the library needs to close for monetary reasons. This hits Josh and the kids hard and leads to them staging a '60s-inspired Read-In rather than letting their library be shut down. The play's ending reveals the true identity of Mr. T. The World's Strongest Librarian will get kids pumped up to read, to work themselves into shape and especially to be kind to others.

Alison Kalmus directs. Her previous credits at Sierra Madre Playhouse include A Little House Christmas, A Christmas Memory, The Gondoliers, and more.

Her cast for The World's Strongest Librarian includes Christopher Showerman (who has appeared in multiple Sierra Madre Playhouse productions) as Josh, and Mimi Chen (host of Peace, Love and Sundays on 88.5 FM).. The cast also includes young actors Kalyan Mukhopadhyay, Jacqueline Li, Jordan Martinez and Sophia Barna. The four youth actors are membera of the Alison Kalmus Theatre Academy, the resident training program for young artists at Sierra Madre Playhouse.

Stage manager: Jeanne Marie Valleroy. Assistant stage manager: Roxie Krekorian Hanish.

The Spring semester of Alison Kalmus Theatre Academy at Sierra Madre Playhouse begins February 17. For more information, go to https://www.sierramadreplayhouse.org/youth-acting-and-musical-theater-workshops.php

For more information about shows in the coming months at Sierra Madre Playhouse, go to http://sierramadreplayhouse.org

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