The World's Strongest Librarian at Sierra Madre Playhouse

Staged reading of a play.The Worlds 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 isa 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 plays 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.Adapted by Jeff Gottesfeld and Elizabeth Wong. Based on the book by Josh Hanagarne. Directed by Alison Kalmus. Produced by Alison Kalmus (for Off the Page and Sierra Madre Playhouse) and Catherine Adde (for One Book, One City and Sierra Madre Public Library).
Ages: 8 to adult.