You guys, I had the incredible pleasure of visiting Portland to see the new Zombie In Love musical based on the picture book i illustrated with Kelly DiPucchio!  It was created and performed by the Oregon Children’s Theater and it was just so so good!  I could not believe it.  I had a little bit of tears about it i think.  And the songs were really catchy, you guys.

Marci Crowson, the director, was kind enough to take us on a little backstage tour prior to the show where we checked out stage miniatures and props.  I was super excited to see worm hand puppets!  After the show, we signed books for the kids and met the cast.  It really was so impressive and just so much fun, you guys.  I HIGHLY recommend checking it out!  It runs until March 23rd.

There were also a few local cartoonists invited to the show that evening to do some sketches inspired by the production: Mike Russell, Lucy Bellwood , and my buddy Graham Annable even did some sweet cartoons.  They are posting them somewhere.  i will find out and then add it to this post here.

I would like to share with you some photos of my visit and the play itself.  More of the professional production photos can be found HERE, if you are interested. And more from our visit can be found HERE.

Here are some of the professional photos of the production that i definitely did not take. They added school scenes and more build up of Mildred’s character and i loved it!  They also added the worms as narrators and moral support for Mortimer. Super cute.     Here is am with the director, Marci Crowson!         And here are the amazing leads Blake Peebles and Madison Wray…     Here’s Mildred’s room, you guys….   The theater was real pretty as well. Reminded me of Shakespeare’s Globe theater, only not a globe shape…   They even had Mortimer’s zombie dog on his coffin couch!     Look at these cute mini sets Marci made for the production team…    Here is the props table. Worm puppets, you guys!  Right there on the table!

Signing books and meeting kids…

 

Mike, Lucy, Graham, and James!

 

I had my picture taken with the cast. What a splendid cast..