Good Night Moon the Musical

In the great green room, there was a telephone, a red balloon and a picture of a cow jumping over the moon, and three bears sitting on chairs, two little kittens and a pair of mittens, a little toy house and two people from Wisconsin with two little people from Chicago.
Heather and I took Nick and Piper to the Victory theater in Chicago to see the play Good Night Moon performed by the Chicago Children's Theater.  Kyle and Leah had tickets to another concert at the same time as Good Night Moon, so Heather and I decided we could handle this on our own.  Our adventure actually started at Kyle and Leah's place as Heather practiced how to use the Baby Bjorn.

Then we got Nick to put on his pants, bundled up Piper, and headed for the car.  Then following both a map and the GPS on my I Phone, we drove to the Victory Theater.  On the way Nick asked "Where are we going"  and I said "Trust us, Nick."  Nick replied "I don't trust anyone."  That's not very reassuring.  We found parking on a street just a couple blocks away.  Nick liked walking through the puddles.

We picked our tickets at "will call" and were told it was open seating.  We were about 15 minutes early, and only about 20 people were already sitting.  They were all in the center rows, so we opted to sit on the left side, about 5 rows from the stage, a perfect view of everything.
We waited for the play to start.  Heather asked Nick if he wanted to walk around and check out the place, but he declined.  He was perfectly happy to sit and wait.  He did go down to the stage to touch it though.

It was 3:05 and I made the comment that the show is late.  Nick replied "You should just wait." which of course we did.
Good Night Moon is a story written by Margaret Wise Brown about a bunny that doesn't want to go to sleep, and proceeds to say good night to everything in his room, as his mommy keeps trying to get him to hush.  That is pretty much the whole book, so we were curious how this could become an hour show.
Then the lights dimmed, and a man entered the theater through a side entrance, wearing a trench coat and bunny ears, he walked down the theater stairs up to the stage.  On the stage was a Good Night Moon book.  He picked it up and the book came alive.  It started to fly upward.  Nick was astonished.  He shouted, "Its magic."  and some other kid shouted out its flying..Nick reiterated, that "No, it's magic!!"

Then the man got on the stage, took off his coat, had on his all in one blue sleeper, the curtain opened and the stage lit up.  If you are a Good Night Moon fanatic, you would see that nothing in the room is missing, from the bedside clock to the Runaway Bunny book on the bookcase.

Basically everything in the room comes alive, and creates a story that keeps the bunny from going to bed.  There is a live band playing, humorous songs sung by the bunny, a mouse that is played by a girl with a very squeeky voice, and an older women dressed like a cow.  Alex Goodrich as the bunny, does a fantastic job including the audience in all the action.  And the action never stops.  Dancing, singing, story telling, there isn't any downtime.  Its no wonder that Piper sat wide eyed for the whole show, completely entertained.

 Nick understood the theme of the story when he said to me "He doesn't want to go to sleep, just like me."  and at the end the man in the moon talks to the audience..and Nick looked at me so surprised, "I didn't know the moon could talk!"  

When the show was done, Nick and Piper sat on the stage for a few pictures.  We all had a fun time, it was a very entertaining hour definitely designed with kids in mind, and for adults that are young at heart.   Heather reasoned that was why the man came out in the beginning, that even though he was an adult, he longed for the days that he was a young bunny with a great great room and a wonderful imagination.  

Our adventure was not done.  We then drove to Panera for dinner followed by a quick stop at Kohl's department store.  Not an easy task when you are driving in Chicago, but we had no problems at all.  Thanks Leah for the tickets, and allowing us to take Nick to his first live play.  I think we smiled the whole time!