The "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" juggernaut comes down to a simple equation: Tween angst plus growing pains equals a comedy gold mine — and a potential new vein for Children's Theatre Company to tap.
The "Wimpy Kid" series has done bang-up business, with more than 165 million books in print and three film spinoffs that have cumulatively grossed $225 million.
Now the franchise is expanding to the stage with Friday's premiere of "Diary of a Wimpy Kid the Musical." You can almost hear a famous businessman-turned-politician trumpeting that "it's gonna be huge!" And it might well be.
"Wimpy Kid" is likely to be the biggest production in the theater's history. That would mean surpassing holiday hits such as "Cinderella" and "Dr Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas," whose budgets check in around the $1 million range.
The capstone production of Children's Theatre's 50th anniversary season, and the last of five premieres, "Wimpy Kid" is backed by Broadway producer Kevin McCollum ("Rent," "In the Heights," "Motown the Musical" and "Something Rotten!") and Fox's theatrical arm. In short, there's a lot riding on this show, even as CTC artistic director Peter Brosius deflects questions about whether its ultimate destination is New York.
"We've been driven by how to make this a strong piece that is funny, touching, alive and as theatrical as possible," said Brosius. "Our entire focus has been on our production here for our wonderful audience."
The new musical, based mostly on the first book in the series by Jeff Kinney, follows 12-year-old Greg Heffley as he tries to survive his first year of middle school. Greg cares deeply about status and title and doesn't care how he achieves either, which is where it all goes wrong.
The story focuses on youngsters, but it is created to hit the sweet spot for families, and capture audiences who love the musicals "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown" and "Annie," said McCollum.
"This is about all of us who have pressed face to the glass, looking in," he said. "You have to find out who you are. When you're an adult, every day is middle school."
The creative team is led by director/choreographer Rachel Rockwell, a highly respected figure in Chicago, with a book by actor/writer Kevin Del Aguila (TV's "Peg+Cat") and songs by the team of Michael Mahler of Minnetonka and Alan Schmuckler of Chicago.
A surprising success
That "Wimpy Kid" is now basically an industry is a surprise even to Kinney, the 45-year-old author of the series. The books might not have happened had he achieved his original dream: becoming a newspaper cartoonist.
"I tried to become a syndicated cartoonist and failed, utterly and completely, for about three years," he said over coffee at the Minneapolis Institute of Art recently after ducking out of a rehearsal. "Then one day a lightbulb went off. I could slip my cartoons into books and offer them as a seventh-grader."
Even then it wasn't easy, of course. Kinney, a game designer, built an audience online for his work. He was dogged and determined but he also had luck and serendipity, meeting a New York editor who was looking for exactly what he had to offer. The first of his 10 books so far appeared in print in 2007 — three years after being published online. Success came after nearly a dozen years of toil.
Kinney is tall, polished and affable today. But you can almost see how he could have been the basis for Greg Heffley.
"I was petty, I could be untruthful and I was manipulative, even though I also had my good qualities," said Kinney, who lives with his wife and two sons in Plainville, Mass. "I think that Greg is an amplified version of the worst parts of me as a kid. Basically, if any of us had a camera following us around when we're 12 or 13, the results wouldn't be good."
Often, directors wish their playwrights were dead, so they can do whatever they wish with the scripts without much complaining. But "Wimpy Kid" director Rockwell echoed other members of the creative team in saying how much she appreciated Kinney's presence in the rehearsal room.
This "Wimpy Kid" may be a theater piece, but it moves like a film, she said. As of last week during rehearsals, the two-hour production had 54 scenes.
"It's very fast," said Rockwell, who has an 11-year-old son. "And our little Greg is onstage every minute of the show."
Finding Greg
Rockwell auditioned scores of young actors before she saw Ricky Falbo onstage in a small role in a show in Chicago. After the performance, he walked past her in the lobby.
"I wondered if that's the kid," she said. "Then he and I met. We had a coaching session. And within an hour, I knew he was our guy. Ricky is nice and self-possessed. He starts the day smiling and ends it that way. And he has no problem making a fool of himself. Plus, he has this great ability to do all the jerky things that Greg does and still have you like him and want him to succeed."
Kinney said that he has been "blown away" by the creative team's work. The songs are catchy and tuneful. The jokes land.
"It is recognizably my material but they have really amplified it in ways that I didn't expect," he said. "What's fun for me is I get this deflected credit. Some of the stuff these guys are writing is really brilliant, and I get to share in the glory of work that I didn't do."
So, how did this all come about?
Three years ago, Children's Theatre hired as producer Jennifer Collins Ritter, who had previously worked with McCollum and Isaac Hurwitz, former head of the New York Theatre Workshop and now senior vice president of Fox Stage Productions.
She joined a company that seeds the field with new work. CTC's world premiere adaptation of Arnold Lobel's "A Year With Frog and Toad" went to Broadway and was nominated for three Tonys. This season, Broadway director Charles Randolph Wright ("Motown") staged the company's first adaptation of a film, "Akeelah and the Bee," which transferred to Arena Stage in Washington, D.C.
When CTC began thinking about "Wimpy Kid," Ritter knew the right people to call. And now those people are banking on her new employer.
"Creating a musical is not like manufacturing a product," said producer McCollum, who knows the Twin Cities well (he ran Ordway Center from 1995 to 2002). "It's all alchemy. You put all the elements together, then the most important thing you need is an audience to tell you about your show. And the Children's Theatre has one of the smartest audiences around."
Rohan Preston • 612-673-4390
@rohanpreston
