CTC's new season features four world premieres

Minneapolis — The 2008-2009 Children's Theatre Company season announced today will include four world premieres. The Minneapolis company will open with a new adaptation of J.M. Barrie's "Peter Pan."

Managing director Gabriella Calicchio says the show began as a collaboration between the CTC and Scotland's Visible Fictions Company.

"It was the perfect project. And they brought in Fabrizio Montecchi from Italy. He's the leading puppeteer in Italy, and it became a three-way world premiere production of Peter Pan," she said.

The season includes two shows for teenagers --"Five Fingers of Funk" and "Romeo and Juliet."

Calicchio says "Romeo and Juliet" will be done in a theater without seats, with the actors mixing with the audience.

"For example, when Mercutio and Tybalt fight it'll be in their face. Romeo can be talking to Juliet two feet away from the kids that are in the audience," said Calicchio. "I think that it makes it all the more powerful, immediate and real for them."

The season also includes the world premiere of "Iqbal," about a boy who organized child workers in Pakistani carpet factories to fight for better work conditions.

There will also be adaptations of "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," and "Ramona Quimby." The season also includes a show for preschoolers called "Circoluna."