Star Turn

Don’t feel bad for Horton the Elephant because he’s an outsider. It’s that quality that’s made him one of the most famous characters of Theodor Geisel (AKA Dr. Seuss). Horton’s first appearance was in 1940 in Horton Hatches the Egg. In 1954, he enjoyed a triumphant return in Horton Hears a Who! and even had a cameo in How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Now Horton—the oft-ridiculed, perennially good-natured pachyderm—stars in the Children’s Theatre Company’s Seussical.

Seussical ran for a year on Broadway before the show’s writers, Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens, reworked it specifically for young audiences. The result is an eclectic mix of power ballads, gospel, R & B, and Sousa-inspired tunes. The latest version, says Seussical director/choreographer Matthew Howe, isn’t much different from the Broadway one, but it’s a “more effective way to tell the story.”

Seussical’s plot, a mash-up of at least fourteen Dr. Seuss books, is filled with twists and turns. In it, the young boy Jojo meets the Cat in the Hat, who leads him into the Jungle of Nool, which is home to Horton, the Grinch, birds Mayzie and Gertrude McFuzz, and the miniature race of the Whos, among other colorful characters.

Jojo watches the moments when Horton first hears the Whos and when he gets talked into sitting on Mayzie’s nest while the bird hightails it to the beach. Horton’s loyalty to the abandoned egg and his Who friends almost gets him sent to the madhouse, but seventy minutes of music and high-voltage dancing later, all is well, and Horton is lauded for being himself, big ears and all.

Two other local theaters have done versions of Seussical, but no company in town does theater for young people better than CTC. Expect actors Sid Solomon, Autumn Ness, Reed Sigmund, and Jessie Shelton to put in performances that would have charmed Geisel himself. Through June 17. 2400 3rd Ave. S., Mpls., 612-874-0400

Reach Jaime Kleiman at jaimekleiman.com.