Gwendolyn Brooks wrote a poem about a little girl who says, “Inside me I feel stars and sun and bells and singing.” The child wants all other children in the world to be able to live happily and laugh, too. The girl concludes, “Life is for us, and is shining.”
Brooks’ daughter, Nora Brooks Blakely, who is the artistic director of Chocolate Chips Theatre, has chosen that line as the title for the company’s celebration of childhood. “Most of the poems mama has done about children have been written from the standpoint of a particular child,” says Blakely. “I think she has great insight into how children must feel.”
Brooks will share some of those feelings at the celebration when she reads some of her poems about children. She has written several about her daughter, including one about a Halloween long ago when Nora dressed up as a tiger and found the costume incomplete. Her solution was to add stylish white gloves.
Nora later turned her mother’s poem into a play and the celebration will include excerpts from it, as well as from the company’s upcoming musical called “Candy Day.” It also will include performances by young people who show how children’s lives can shine.
“Life Is For Us and Is Shining,” 3 p.m. Sunday, Katherine Dunham Theatre, Kennedy-King College, 6800 S. Wentworth Ave., $10 adults, $5 children; 312-994-7400.
James Sie says he empathized with the main character of “The Story of Ferdinand” when he was a child. “The book was so meaningful for me,” he says, “because Ferdinand was happy with being different and his mother was happy with him being different.”
As much as Sie liked Ferdinand, he ended up in a bullfight with this Spanish animal–who loved to smell flowers–when he began adapting Munro Leaf’s book with composer Douglas Wood for the Lifeline Theatre’s KidSeries.
The problem was that the climactic moment when Ferdinand sits down in the bull ring to smell flowers instead of standing up to fight, is lacking in theatrical drama. So Wood and Sie created a slapstick scene in which the other characters mistakenly believe Ferdinand is about to fight. That didn’t work.
So Wood wrote a song in which the bullfighters try to prod Ferdinand into fighting, and that didn’t work. In the end, they had to trust Leaf’s version. “Ferdinand is not particularly active in the book,” says Wood, “so we had to let him be true to himself.” Adds Sie, “He is the zen-ist bull you’ll ever meet.”
“The Story of Ferdinand,” 1 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays through June 30, Lifeline Theatre, 6912 N. Glenwood Ave., $6 in advance or pay-what-you-can at the door; 312-761-4477.
The land of TV talking animals which includes Big Bird, Kermit the Frog and Barney, now has a new inhabitant. He’s a big yellow bilingual tree frog named Binyah Binyah Pollywog who sometimes communicates in Gullah, a language spoken by Gullah Island natives who are descendants of slaves brought to America from West Africa. Pollywog is coming to Chicago with his co-stars on Nickelodeon’s “Gullah Gullah Island,” real-life husband and wife team Ron and Natalie Daise, to sing songs and tell stories that celebrate diversity.
Appearances by Pollywog and Ron and Natalie Daise, 11 a.m. Thursday, Noodle Kidoodle, 101 W. 75th St., Woodridge, phone 708-910-7510; 3:30 p.m. Thursday, FAO Schwarz, 840 N. Michigan Ave., 312-587-5000; 11 a.m. Friday, Super Crown Books, 7201 Westlake, River Forest, 708-848-8822; 4 p.m. Friday, Target, 2656 N. Elston Ave., 312-252-1994. All performances are free.
“Try before you buy” is the theme for Zany Brainy’s Software Expo where representatives from some of the major manufacturers of computer games and programs will be on hand to show off their latest products.
Software Expo, 1 to 5 p.m. Saturday, Zany Brainy, 307 Skokie Blvd., Northbrook, 847-559-0202; 1-5 p.m. Sunday, Zany Brainy, 150 Barrington Ave., West Schaumburg, 708-830-7737; 1 to 5 p.m. April 20, 18 Blanchard Circle, Wheaton, 708-653-4332; 1 to 5 p.m. April 21, Orland Hills, 9275 W. 159th St, 708-403-6917; free.
Friday
READING: By Samantha of the American Girls Club and art activity, 7 p.m., Zany Brainy, 18 Blanchard Circle, Wheaton, free; 708-653-4332.
Saturday
KIDS FARE: Quintet of the Americas, 10:30 a.m. Lutkin Hall, 700 University Pl., Evanston, $3 adults, $2 children; 847-467-4000.
KIDSTORY: You Are What You Eat, 1-3 p.m., Chicago Historical Society, Clark Street at North Avenue, $3 adults, $1 children; 312-266-2077.
Sunday
HEROES AND HEROINES ACROSS THE WORLD: With storyteller Beth Horner, 1 p.m., Kraft Education Center, Art Institute of Chicago, Michigan Avenue at Adams Street, $7 adults, $3.50 children; 312-443-3600.
SUNDAY EVENING SHOWTIME: With performer Fred Koch, 6 p.m. Kohl Children’s Museum, 165 Green Bay Rd., Wilmette, $8; 847-256-6056. PHOTO: Illinois Poet Laureate Gwendolyn Brooks will read from her work as part of Chocolate Chips Theatre’s “Life Is For Us and Is Shining.”
