PRODUCTION HISTORY

This moving and unique version of The Jungle Book was originally comissioned by the Orlando Shakespeare Theater and performed in the spring of 2006. Since that time it has been performed nationally and internationally. Professional productions include Imagination Stage in the Washington, D.C. area and the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival. Colleges such as Nebraska Wesleyan University, Brigham Young University and San Antonio College enjoyed their productions, as did companies and schools in Canada and New Zealand. Join the ranks of these fine producers and the dozens of summer camps and arts programs that have taken Mowgli's journey through The Jungle Book.

SYNOPSIS

In a 19th century Indian village, the annual Festival of Lights, Diwali, is being celebrated with song and dance. Suddenly Shere Kahn the tiger bounds into the dancers' midst and singles out a woman named Messua and her baby Nathoo, who are the "easiest prey." Though the villagers try to protect her, Messua soon finds herself alone in the jungle. She hides her baby and defeats Shere Kahn by burning his paw with a torch. To her great grief, she realizes that while she was battling the tiger, a Mother Wolf had heard the baby's cries and carried him away for protection. A wounded Shere Kahn follows the baby's scent to Mother Wolf's cave and demands the child as retribution for his burnt paw. Mother Wolf refuses and calls on the pack to frighten Shere Kahn. He leaves, but vows revenge.

Ten years later the boy, renamed Mowgli, is a healthy child who is much loved by his adopted wolf family. One day, after a raucous lesson about Jungle Law with Baloo and Bagheera, a band of monkeys called the Bandar Log kidnap him. Baloo and Bagheera ask Kaa the Python for help. Kaa hypnotizes the Bandars and leads them away from Mowgli. Now free, Mowgli learns that Shere Kahn tricked Mother Wolf into a man-trap and is demanding that Mowgli fight him alone at the rock. On Baloo's council, Mowgli goes to the man-village to get fire.

Mowgli enters the village during the Festival of Diwali, and surprises the villagers in the middle of the celebration. His mother, Messua, instantly recognizes him. They find a way to communicate and she gives him a flame from her Diwali candle.

Defeated by the fire, Shere Kahn is put on trial. He is banished and Mowgli resolves to travel the world to warn all creatures of his evil heart.

The Wolf Pack (Chris Holz, Gina Rivera, Michael Gill, Brittany Morgan) and Mowgli (Kane Prestenback) at OST

The Bandar King (Michael Gill) at OST

Shere Kahn (Chris Lindsay) at OST

PRODUCTION MUSIC

All music in the production is composed and arranged by Daniel Levy, a Richard Rogers Award Winning Composer. The sound is authentically Indian, relying heavily on sitars, tabla and drums. A complete show CD is available for all contracted producers.

CHARACTERS

There are over 20 roles in this production. It was written to be performed by a cast of eight (4 women, 4 men), though the original production used nine actors. By adding more animals and villagers, that script is easily expanded to include as many actors as you wish. A version written specifically for 6 actors (3 men, 3 women) was produced at Imagination Stage and is also available for production.

* Mowgli - an eleven-year-old boy raised by wolves
* Messua - Mowgli's human mother
* Mother Wolf
* Sister Wolf
* Father Wolf
* Brother Wolf
* Bagheera
* Baloo
* Bandar King
* Bhopla Bandar
* Banghan Bandar
* Chil
* Kaa
* Shere Kahn
* Villagers
* Baby Mowgli (swaddled doll with recorded baby cries)

PRODUCTION INFORMATION

When you contract to produce this show, you will receive:

1. A script in PDF format from which you are permitted to make as many production copies as needed.

2. A copy of the Orignal Cast Recording. This CD is invaluable to younger performers or performers who can not read music. You are permitted to copy and distribute this CD to your cast and crew.

3. A piano/vocal score for all of the songs.

4. A "Show CD" with full orchestrations of all songs plus all of the original underscoring and incidental music used in the original production. This CD is accompanied by a Stage Manager script indicating all cue placements.

5. A Sound Effects CD containing all of the sound cues used in the original production.

Kaa at IS

MUSIC

Click here to download a music score sample in pdf format of one of the songs from the show, Here I Go.

Below are two downloadable, fully orchestrated excerpts from the show in mp3 format.

    * One Blood mp3

    * Moonlight mp3

Four scenes in PDF format
Click here to download a script sample in pdf format containing cuts from four scenes of the production.

Click here to download a Study Guide in pdf format containing information and background for students and teachers.

Recent Reviews:

Jenna Sokolowski as Bagheera at Imagination Stage

Morgan Russell as Bagheera at OST

THE WASHINGTON POST

'Jungle Book': Lessons Swing From the Vines

By Celia Wren
Washington Post Staff Writer

Saturday, October 6, 2007; Page C05

A tried-and-true motif of children's theater -- that it's okay to be different -- gets an exotic twist in Imagination Stage's latest offering: a colorful, sitar-twanging musical based on Rudyard Kipling's "The Jungle Book."

With an engagingly Eastern-sounding score by Daniel Levy and a book by April-Dawn Gladu (they co-authored the lyrics), this 75-minute family show provides an accessible introduction to Kipling's tale of Mowgli, a boy raised alongside wise, mysterious jungle beasts. Director Kathryn Chase Bryer's efficiently paced staging contains respectful cosmopolitan touches (an Indian stick dance, for instance), but it also offers fun comic moments featuring a vaudeville team of irreverent monkeys. These rowdy simians, who might not be out of place on Nickelodeon, help speed the production along to its live-and-let-live conclusion.

It all unfurls on Ethan Sinnott's tropical set, lush with trees and vines and peppered with pottery vases suggesting the human realm beyond the rain forest. Costume designer Debra Kim Sivigny also emphasizes the coexistence of people and fauna with her stylized attire. The actors, who play Indian villagers in some scenes, wear tunics and turbans, or diaphanous headdresses and sari-like skirts. Donning a suggestive tail and a pair of pointed ears -- and adopting a few graceful dance-like gestures -- turns them into the story's zoological characters.

The most distinctive of those is the villainous tiger Shere Khan (Ray Ficca), who has it in for the amiable Mowgli (Chris Wilson, acting suitably callow). Mowgli's adopted mother, a stately wolf (Jeri Marshall), and the panther Bagheera (an aristocratic Jenna Sokolowski) keep the young human safe for a while, with help from the jovial bear Baloo (Sasha Olinick), who tutors local cubs in the Law of the Jungle. In the musical number "One Blood," which is likely to appeal to younger children, Baloo coaxes his students and the audience through an enumeration of jungle creatures, with a hand gesture and a greeting cry ("Squack! Hsss!") for each one.

In a more sophisticated touch, one of the story's animals, a raptor, is embodied as a puppet -- a detail that enriches the production's visual texture.

The puppeteer for this brief sequence is Aaron Holmes, who at other times sits to one side of the stage playing Indian and African drums, shivery chimes and other tangy percussion.

Still, it's the cackling monkeys portrayed by Sokolowski and Nadya Chacon that steal the show, crouching and loping around and reeling off bad puns and inane jokes. They're goofy figures, but when they briefly get the best of Mowgli, the moment drives home how helpless a human can be in a wild environment. (For those who can't get enough of Kipling's man-meets-jungle saga, Disney has just released a 40th-anniversary DVD of the animated movie.)

In the show's poignant conclusion, Mowgli realizes that he's not inferior to his animal buddies, just different. Diversity isn't the only value the show champions, either: The jungle is teeming with examples of cooperation, loyalty, tolerance and respect for the environment.

Fortunately, these morals don't get in the way of the evocative atmosphere, and don't obstruct the fun. This is a musical in which someone actually slips on a banana peel: Theater doesn't get much more user-friendly than that.

Youth Theaters Go To The Jungle!

Dozens of theater academies, schools and summer camps have produced expanded cast versions with students' grades ranging from elementary through high school. We are available day or night, literally, to help you through the process. FYI: The largest cast to date had over 70 students!

Kaa dances at ShenanArts in VA

Chil flies at ShenanArts in VA

Baloo's students sing "One Blood" at Stage One Youth Theatre in Indiana

a drummer at ShenanArts in VA

More Reviews:

THE WASHINGTON TIMES

A Stunning Jungle Book

By Jayne Blanchard

October 4, 2007

Rudyard Kipling's moral fables about the laws of the jungle have been given generous dollops of Indian spice in Imagination Stage's exotic -- but in a kid-friendly way -- production of "The Jungle Book."

Collaborators April-Dawn Gladu and Daniel Levy have come up with musical numbers brightly sprinkled with Hindi words that capture the polyrhythmic complexities of East Asian music but also are accessible to children whose idea of catchy songs begins and ends with the Cheetah Girls. The far-off aura is furthered by Lori Clark's Indian-flavored percussive dances, performed on Ethan Sinnott's tropical set, rendered in emerald greens, peacock blues and saffron yellows.

Like the 1967 Disney movie of the same title, "The Jungle Book" concentrates on the "man-cub" Mowgli (Chris Wilson), adopted and raised by wolves after his mother is attacked by the tiger Shere Khan (Ray Ficca). Mother Wolf (Jeri Marshall) provides nurturing, while tutors Baloo (Sasha Olinick) the bear and Bagheera (Jenna Sokolowski) teach him about the jungle's ethical codes and how to survive in nature.

Although he gets plenty of love and support, Mowgli feels different and apart from his animal family. He has "twigs" instead of paws, no tail to flick, and has to fight with his wits rather than claws or sharp teeth. Mowgli's struggle to fit in ultimately results in the uniting of the human and animal worlds.

"The Jungle Book" charts Mowgli's growth in picaresque style as he travels through the jungle and encounters two chattery, joke-spewing monkeys (Nadya Chacon and Jenna Sokolowski, more fun than a barrel of you-know-whats playing a pair of rude, acrobatic apes who peel off such puns as "What's a snake's favorite subject? Hiss-tory."); a sinuous and hypnotic snake named Kaa (Jeri Marshall); and his nemesis, the aging and crafty Shere Kahn.

Mr. Wilson's Mowgli so convincingly straddles the species that you can acutely feel his discomfort and wonder when he enters a human village for the first time. Hunched over like an animal and sniffing everything in sight, Mowgli senses he is at home but still is endearingly at odds with things like tableware, oil lamps and food that comes in bowls.

"The Jungle Book" depicts the animal world with such vivid realism -- tinged with death and darkness -- that very small children might be frightened by the sounds and stylized violence. Luckily, these moments usually are leavened by anthropomorphic songs and dances that show a sunnier side of survival.

Imagination Stage's adaptation of "The Jungle Book" provides more than the bare necessities. It is an opulent, visually and aurally stunning glimpse into cultures that may be foreign to us but are achingly familiar in the universal quest to be loved and appreciated and to find the place where we most belong.

Maximum rating: Four Stars

THE MORNING CALL

Shakespeare Fest's exotic, inspiring 'Jungle Book' ventures far from Disney

by Kathy Lauer-Williams

Thursday, June 5, 2008

Give the kids a taste of Indian culture with a visit to the Pennsylvania Shakespeare FEstival's exotic "The Jungle Book." The play at DeSales University is filled with brightly colored, flowing costumes, lighting that evokes the leafy mystery of the jungle and a score of Indian-inspired songs built on the themes of inclusion, cooperation and respect for others.

Featuring as assortment of memorable characters - from the wide-eyed 11-year-old Mowgli to the hypnotic and dangerous Kaa the python - the tale may be a little scary at spots but is ultimately richly rewarding. It's definitely not the Disney version of the Rudyard Kipling story.

The animals are creatively portrayed with stylized gold headpieces and paws on the back of their hands.