Lilly isn’t going with her scientist parents on their next big adventure. The ocean is too big and scary. Instead, the 10-year-old finds herself staying with her eccentric, librarian great uncle, and that’s where the real adventure begins.
The story unfolds in a new children’s musical set for its world premiere at Louisville’s StageOne Family Theatre with a run of shows starting March 15.
When the musical’s co-adaptor and co-lyrist John Maclay first encountered Phyllis Root’s “Lilly and the Pirates” years ago, he said he immediately saw its potential.
“Some pieces of literature, I think, lend themselves to musicals,” Maclay said. “Some of them just sing off the page a little bit. There's also something epic and large about it. There's a lot of movement to it.”
Maclay worked alongside composer, writer and lyricist Brett Ryback and playwright Will Eno to turn the children's book into a high seas adventure set to music and adapted for the stage.
“What's wonderful about a musical is you can take one moment of truth in the story and expand that into a three to five minute musical moment while preserving the arc of the whole story and the feeling of this story,” Maclay said.
For Ryback, taking a book and setting it to music is instinctive.
“When I'm looking at a book like that, I'm trying to track what the most important character moments are, where the character is either undergoing some sort of change or having to make an important decision, or the story is needing to, you know, just in terms of its plot, move in a direction,” Ryback said.
He said those are the moments where music fits best.
“Luckily, in this story, those really were identifiable in a very easy and straightforward way, and a lot of times because of the fact that the action is so big, and I think that's also why it's really fun to see it live on stage,” Ryback said.
He described the music for the show as a “very epic, sweeping, cinematic sound.”
After finishing writing the musical, it was time for Maclay, Ryback and Eno to find the place to debut it.
Maclay was already familiar with StageOne from their production of another one of his and Ryback’s play’s “Nate the Great.”
“They're not an unknown entity. This is a company that knows how to put on a Ryback, Maclay show,” Maclay said.
Both Maclay and Ryback expressed more excitement than nerves about the musical’s premiere in Louisville.
At the helm of the production is director Allison Sims. She said she was drawn to the script as soon as she read it.
“I read it and was like, ‘Oh, I was a little girl filled with anxiety and worry, and how do people see me? And trying new things always made me nervous,’” Sims said. “And so that feeling, I think, is identifiable across all kids. And so it's always important for kids to feel seen on stage.”
Sims said themes include overcoming fears, as well as igniting a love of libraries and books.
Directing a production that has never been done before offers unique challenges to Sims.
“When it's not a world premiere, you end up googling it, and being like, what did other people do?” Sims said. “You can draw inspiration from [other productions], but this is truly like, you need to read the book that it was based on, and you read the play, and then we kind of like talk out ideas from there.”
Despite the challenges, Sims believes mounting new productions is worthwhile theater.
“It’s always important to tell new stories so new people can feel seen in new ways,” Sims said. “The way [children] intake information changes, you know, all the time. So in creating new works, we are able to make sure that they are taking in information and the way they see the world changes. So the world we need to present to them needs to change with it.”
“Lilly and the Pirates,” has performances on select dates from March 15 to 29 at the Bombard Theater.
