A Week With Frog and Toad

 

Despite the pandemic and the world-wide closing of theatre doors, the Arden Theatre has found a way to bring joy into every theatre enthusiast’s home by streaming its successful run of the Arden Children’s Theatre’s A Year With Frog and Toad. Starring Jeffrey Coon as the Frog, Ben Dibble as the Toad, Steve Pacek as the Snail and a host of other friends in 2004, 2009 and again in 2016, this tale is every bit as delightful in 2020. There are many songs, and the  lyrics are so “catchy” you want to sing along and hope the songs never stop. “Eating Cookies” and "Toad Looks Funny in a Bathing Suit” had the audience rocking. There were a lot of recurring jokes that had the younger members of the audience scream in laughter and my  “sophisticated” 12-year-old granddaughter who had seen the show in 2016 smile.  Snail delivering mail that took a year- lights onto the snail’s progress throughout the course of the show’, and the reference to a broken clock every time someone wanted to know the time. Donald Eastman did a fantastic job with the set design- a separation of the stage floor serves as both a swimming pool and later as a fire pit for an outdoor evening. Thom Weaver  did marvelous  work with the lighting, changing daytime to night. This is one show that can be seen endless times and something new can be appreciated from it with each experience. Kudos to the Arden for making it available again.