BU Today feature: Wheelock Family Theatre Presents Little Women: The Broadway Musical
This article was originally published in BU Today on January 31, 2020. By John O’Rourke
Louisa May Alcott’s novel Little Women is an enduring work in American literature. Since its publication in 1868, the story of the four March sisters, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy, has never been out of print, winning generation after generation of fans. It has been adapted more than a dozen times for television and film, most recently in Greta Gerwig’s 2019 critically acclaimed Oscar nominated movie starring Saoirse Ronan.
Boston audiences now have a chance to encounter the March sisters in a live stage version. The latest production of the Wheelock Family Theatre (WFT), Little Women: The Broadway Musical opens this weekend and runs through February 23. With music by Jason Howland, lyrics by Mindy Dickstein, and book by Allan Knee, this musical adaptation debuted on Broadway in 2005 in a production starring Sutton Foster as Jo.
WFT associate artistic and education director Nick Vargas, who is directing the musical, says he and artistic director Emily Ranii were looking for a musical with a small cast, one that would appeal to children from early elementary through middle school. Then he remembered a community theater production of Little Women he was in when he was 18 (he played the elderly Mr. Lawrence). “It has this timeless quality of great characters, great story, and great themes—finding one’s own path, fighting for what you want, and allowing yourself to be changed along the way—that all of us can relate to,” Vargas says.
And of course, coming on the heels of a hit movie dealing with the same plotline didn’t hurt.
“I think Greta Gerwig decided to direct her film because she heard we were doing the musical,” jokes Ranii (CFA’13), a College of Fine Arts Opera Institute lecturer and academic program head of the BU Summer Theatre Institute. She says the musical is an ideal fit for WFT: “Everything we do here is about demonstrating to our audiences that their voices matter. And these girls find their voices in four different ways. Sharing this story now is a way of saying, any way that you find your voice matters and is important, and we celebrate who you are, just as you are.”