What happens when a boy whose head is filled with wild imagination and impossible dreams lives with a widowed Mother who can only think of the necessities of feeding a child and keeping a roof over their heads? How do you deal with a landlord who's only joy in life is pitching poor defenseless widows and children out of their homes and into the snow.....(even if there is no snow)? How do you deal with a child sent off to market to sell your last cow who returns with a handful of "magic" (yeah...right!) beans and no cow? When a giant beanstalk springs up overnight in your yard and your son climbs it declaring his "fortune" lies at the top of the beanstalk....and Landlord Bile climbs up after him declaring "Any fortune you find up there is MINE!".....What's a Mother to do? What Jack finds at the top of the beanstalk is Act II of this hysterical romp, filled with lively music and fun, culminating in a scramble to run off with the hen that lays golden eggs and a golden harp whose singing keeps waking up the napping Giant. This sequence is scored like a stop-action Keystone Cops routine. This five character musical features the boy, Jack B. Nimble, his mother, the Widow Nimble, the landlord, Vernon Q. Bile, Gurda, the giant's bored wife, and Wallace, the dim-witted giant. Songs include "Has Anybody Seen My Cow?", " I Love a Choo-Choo Train", "Magic Beans", "Is It Wrong To Dream?", "Look At That!", "I'm Walkin' On A Cloud", "Bored", and "Fee Fi Foe....ahhh...Duh". It is scored with an optional off-stage chorus to provide embellishments. There are two sets, two cross-over scenes (one of them in the clouds) and the time and place is anybody's guess. And who's that in the two-actor cow-costume?
Copyright © 2008 Richard Kinter All rights reserved