BOSTON, MA - September 5, 2024 - The Boston Public Library (BPL) today announced it will be hosting the theatrical debut of Adam Theater’s Library Lion, a musical play based on the children’s book by Michelle Knudsen, named by TIME Magazine as one of The 100 Best Children's Books of All Time. Library Lion marks the inaugural production of Adam Theater, a Boston-based 501(c)(3) committed to presenting professional theater to children and young adults.
Adam Theater co-founder and award-winning Director Ran Bechor’s vision comes to life with a life-size three-person lion puppet that was custom-built for the production by Jim Henson’s Little Creature Shop. The site-specific production will turn areas of the BPL into an immersive stage set. The hour-long performance begins at the Grand Staircase of the historic McKim Building, with its pair of lion statues memorializing two Massachusetts Civil War infantries. The production then journeys through the Puvis de Chavannes Gallery and the Abbey Room, concluding in the Boylston Room, the first children’s reading room in a public library in America.
“This partnership between the BPL and Adam Theater is a natural extension of both institutions’ commitments to fostering a love of literature and arts in the City of Boston,” said BPL President David Leonard. “By bringing high-quality children’s theater to the library’s historic spaces, we will not only activate the historic McKim Building as a vibrant cultural hub but will also create unique, immersive experiences that engage young audiences and inspire lifelong learning.”
“The fact we built our Library Lion with Jim Henson’s Creature Shop has been instrumental in our process, where we aim to bring high-quality art for young audiences in Boston in every layer of our work,” said Ran Bechor, Director of Library Lion. “We’re excited to debut this captivating experience at the Boston Public Library, a venue that embodies the same spirit of imagination and learning that our show seeks to inspire in children and families alike.”
Adam Theater’s production of Library Lion has gained support from the original author Michelle Knudson, “When I wrote Library Lion, I hoped to share some of my sense of the library as a special, magical place... a place where anything might happen. Collaborating with Ran Bechor and Adam Theater to stage the story inside the beautiful Boston Public Library has created a whole new vision and an enchanting musical experience.”
Library Lion was first published in 2006 and quickly became a modern classic. Translated into 24 languages, Library Lion currently has more than 2 million copies in print worldwide.
Library Lion features an original script by playwright Eli Bijaoui, accompanied by live music arranged by Yoni Rechter, set design by Cameron Anderson and a cast of five actors and three puppeteers.
The inaugural run of shows at the BPL, supported in part by a $50,000 donation from the Boston Public Library Fund, will be attended by students from local Boston elementary schools. Adam Theater will open the show to the general public in January 2025 at the Stanford Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts.
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ABOUT THE BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY
Established in 1848, the Boston Public Library is a pioneer of public library service in America. It was the first large, free municipal library in the United States; the first public library to lend books; the first to have a branch library; and the first to have a children’s room.
The Boston Public Library of today is a robust system that includes the Central Library in Copley Square, 25 neighborhood branches, the Norman B. Leventhal Map and Education Center, the Kirstein Business Library and Innovation Center, and an archival center, offering public access to world-class special collections of rare books, manuscripts, photographs, and prints, along with rich digital content and online services.
The Boston Public Library serves nearly 4 million visitors per year and millions more online. All of its programs and exhibitions are free to all and open to the public. The Boston Public Library is a department of the City of Boston, under the leadership of Mayor Michelle Wu. To learn more, visit bpl.org.
ABOUT ADAM THEATER
Adam Theater is a one-of-a-kind non-profit professional theater company producing plays that speak directly to young audiences’ growing minds in a language they can understand, and with stories they can relate to. Co-founded by Ran Bechor and Karin Sharav-Zalkind, they're helping kids and teens find their voices, discover their identities, and experience the magic of theater. Support for our inaugural production, Library Lion, has been generously given by the Krupp Foundation, the Philip & Bernice Krupp Foundation for Jewish Life, and the Hassenfeld Family Initiatives. The production has been awarded grants from the Boston Public Library Fund, is powered by the CJP Community Impact Grant, is the recipient of the City of Boston Youth Development Grant and is supported by Bain Capital Children’s Charity.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
Ran Bechor, Artistic Director of Adam Theater, is both an award-winning playwright and theater director. In 2016, Bechor was awarded first place at the Akko International Fringe Theater Festival for his play Schreber. Uncle Max’s Journey, which Bechor wrote and directed, was the opening play at Haifa International Children’s Play Festival in 2014. He directed the award-winning plays Offstage and Minyan. In 2012, he was the artistic director of the Site-Specific Festival, featuring 18 alternative spaces for theater, music, and dance in Tel Aviv-Yafo. Bechor is a former fellow of the Mandel School for Educational Leadership in Jerusalem. He spent two years as the principal of a school for the gifted in Jerusalem. He currently teaches Hebrew language and culture at Harvard University. In 2023 he co-founded Adam Theater in Boston, MA.
ABOUT LIBRARY LION
In this affectionate tribute to libraries, readers meet Mr. McBee, the head librarian, a stickler for rules who has no idea how to deal with the lion wandering among the stacks. But, as it turns out, this lion is very well suited to his new surroundings – until something terrible happens, and the lion comes to the rescue in the only way he knows how to prevent a big catastrophe. Library Lion was adapted for the stage in 2013 and has charmed audiences at more than 500 performances since.
