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Arts & Entertainment

'Little Miss Sunshine' Yellow Bus Rolls Into La Jolla

The La Jolla Playhouse presents the world premiere musical adaptation of the Oscar-winning movie.

OK, all those who loved the 2006 movie Little Miss Sunshine raise hands (that would be just about everybody). Well, here comes the musical theater version, having its world premiere at the .

The Oscar-winning film certainly appealed to Tony- and Pulitzer Prize-winning director and writer James Lapine, whose past collaborations include two Stephen Sondheim musicals: Into the Woods and Sunday in the Park with George. But when it comes to “quirky,” which is how he describes the characters in Sunshine, his first thought was composer/lyricist William Finn, with whom he collaborated on Falsettos and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.

In a recent media sneak-preview, Lapine described the show as “a very free adaptation, not slavish at all to the movie. We invented scenes and developed characters in the way movies can’t. It’ll be a very different experience.”

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The great challenge was “theatricalizing a road trip.” The creators were adamant about not doing it “high-tech,” with video projections. "Everyone on Broadway is using projections," says Lapine. Instead, they’re going to “change the geography of the set with lights and texture.” And at least four incarnations of the famous yellow VW van that the wacky Hoover family takes (mostly pushes) from New Mexico to California, for chubby little 10-year-old Olive’s first (and undoubtedly last) beauty pageant. There’s a full-scale bus, and a few that are half-size, 3/4 size and a little remote-controlled version.

“It’s all seen through the whimsy of a 10-year-old’s mind,” explains Lapine.

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That 10-year-old will be played by 10-year-old Georgi James, a New Jersey resident and recent member of the Broadway cast of Billy Elliot.

Tony Award nominee Hunter Foster (Urinetown, Million Dollar Quartet, Little Shop of Horrors, The Producers) portrays her father, Richard, the no-nonsense, 10-stepping motivational speaker who agrees to take the family on the comically disastrous journey.

“Richard has the weight of the world on his shoulders,” says Foster. “He’s trying to be a good father, son and husband—and keep his family and marriage together.”

Foster, who admits to a “complicated” relationship with his own father, notes that Richard has a complicated relationship with his father and his kids. And then he has a death to deal with, not to mention a body theft.

“Bill and James are brilliant,” Foster says. “Every time things could dip into over-sentimentality, they temper it with a joke.”

He is thrilled to be working with Lapine, who has directed two other shows at the Playhouse (a revival of Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along in 1985 and his own Luck, Pluck and Virtue in 1993) as well as a Sondheim musical at the Old Globe (the premiere of Into the Woods, 1996). Foster considers Lapine to be “one of the smarter directors I’ve ever worked with—and I’ve worked with almost everyone!”

The handsome, charming actor also loves the score. “There’s some really great music, and the lyrics are smart and surprising. There’s a seamless transition from dialogue to lyrics. You don’t want it to sound like a song, more like a person’s inner thoughts.

“And of course, it’s a really great story—about a dysfunctional family that learns how to become a family again. The symbolism of pushing a bus is learning how to co-exist; they have to hold each other up and help each other. A lot of TV and movies are cynical about family. This is heartwarming, touching, moving. It’s wonderful to see a family come together instead of falling apart.

“This becomes an emotional journey, not just a physical one,” Foster asserts. “And we’ve got a great cast. We’ve become our own little dysfunctional family.”

Life imitates art once again. Cue the music.

Show Info

Little Miss Sunshine is currently in previews. The show opens officially on March 4 and continues through March 27, in the Mandell Weiss Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse.

Performances are Tuesday-Wednesday at 7:30 p.m., Thursday-Saturday at 8 p.m., Sunday at 7 p.m., and Saturday-Sunday at 2 p.m.

Tickets are $44-$100 and available at 858-550-1010 or lajollaplayhouse.org.

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