Alliance Children’s Theatre and Opus say “Goodnight, Moon”

The Alliance Children’s Theatre and Berke Breathed’s now-retired comic strip “Opus” share a common, current fascination with one of America’s favorite bedtime stories. The soothing picture book Goodnight, Moon by Clement Hurd and Margaret Wise Brown has helped children drift off since the 1940s. Through Nov. 16, the Alliance Theatre is staging Chad Henry’s musical adaptation, and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Pierre Ruhe says his preschool son loves both the book and the production. Ruhe adds,

Rosemary Newcott’s direction, in fact, has the opposite effect of the book. In striped pajamas, his cotton tail peeping out the back, Little Bunny (Derek Manson) and his pink-pajama’d pal Mouse (Sharon Litzky) apparently downed a couple of Red Bulls after dinner. They’re clearly on a sugar and caffeine high...
Meanwhile, Goodnight Moon literally provides the final resting place for Opus, a sad-sack everyman who happens to be a penguin in Breathed’s comic strip of the same name. “Opus” ran from 2003 through 2008, and in its final arc, Breathed (as “the creator”) and Elvis appeared to Opus and told him to find the place where he wanted to be forever. After various adventures, the final strip appeared in late October on the website of The Humane Society of America and sent Opus off to final reward: asleep in the last page of Goodnight Moon.