If you want a charming and heartwarming family show for the holidays, look no further than Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas, now bringing all the sweet quiet magic of the Jim Henson 1977 television special to the stage.
This isn’t a new show, exactly; it premiered at Connecticut’s Goodspeed Musicals in 2008, and had an off-Broadway run in 2021 at New Victory Theater. But in a local landscape filled with Carols, Nutcrackers, and Wonderful Lives, this Chicago premiere stands out for hitting the sweet spot between nostalgia and freshness.
Featuring a honey of a score (performed live to prerecorded music) by songwriting legend Paul Williams (whose association with the Muppets and Jim Henson includes “The Rainbow Connection” from 1979’s The Muppet Movie, as well as the score for the televised Emmet Otter), it’s also a holiday show that isn’t overburdened with carols and kitsch. But you might find yourself humming songs like “When the River Meets the Sea” and “Our World” as if they’re old holiday friends.
Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas
Through 12/31: Tue 7 PM, Wed 2 and 7 PM, Fri 7 PM, Sat 2 and 7 PM, Sun 11 AM and 3 PM; also Fri 11/24 2 PM, Thu 12/14 and 12/28 7 PM; Wed 12/22 2 PM only, Sun 12/31 3 PM only; Studebaker Theater, 410 S. Michigan, 312-753-3210, fineartsbuilding.com and emmetotterlive.com, $43-$87 (private balcony box for six $300)
In a way, they are. Russell Hoban’s book first came out in 1971, and was adapted for the television version by Jerry Juhl, and for the stage by Timothy Allen McDonald and Christopher Gattelli (the latter also directs and choreographs). The story owes an obvious debt to O. Henry’s “The Gift of the Magi.” Emmet (Andy Mientus) and his widowed Ma (Kathleen Elizabeth Monteleone) are river otters scratching out a living in Frogtown Hollow, just outside of Waterville. He does odd jobs using his father’s old tools, and she puts her washtub to use doing laundry for the wealthier folks in town, like Mayor Fox’s wife, Gretchen (Emily Rohm), who always manages to find a way not to pay her bill.
With Christmas just around the corner, Emmet wants to get Ma a new piano to replace the one she had to sell years earlier. (Pa Otter left them with dreams, but not much in the way of practical support.) Ma wants to get Emmet the sweet guitar with mother-of-pearl inlays in the window of Mrs. Mink’s music shop. When Mayor Fox (Kevin Covert) announces a Christmas Eve talent show with a $50 prize, the Otters both decide independently of each other to enter. Ma pawns Emmet’s tools so she can get fabric for a nice dress to perform in, and Emmet drills a hole in Ma’s washboard to make a washboard bass for the jug band he’s putting together with some other critters.
Will it work out? It’s the holidays, isn’t it? There are some rough waters on the river along the way, but Emmet and Ma find out that they may not get what they wanted, but they’ll definitely get what they need by trusting in themselves and each other.
The talent show framework means that a good bit of the last part of this well-paced 75-minute production gives all the performers (puppets and humans alike) a chance to shine. Sawyer Smith’s Madame Squirrel juggles her quartet of mischievous offspring (who earlier had urged Emmet to “Trust That Branch”) and shakes a prodigious tail in the process. (Gregg Barnes’s marvelous clever costumes, combined with anthropomorphic hair and makeup by Megan E. Pirtle, provide oodles of visual delight.) Mrs. Mink (Sharriese Hamilton) shakes off her seemingly shy demeanor to tear it up with a (fairly demure) burlesque number, “Born in a Trunk.” It’s all about celebrating community and individuality at the same time. Even the bad boys of the Riverbottom Nightmare Band aren’t nearly as villainous as their reputation seems to suggest.
Wisely, the show’s design elements lean into the sense of homemade and homespun—which by no means should be construed as looking cheap. Rather, they combine to give a sense of simplicity and comfort entirely consonant with the tone of the story. Anna Louizos’s set features movable small-town storefronts and country cabins, with a backdrop drawing of the topography around Waterville giving a sense of where we are. (The window panels that pop out to reveal various puppets also recalls the opening of The Muppet Show.) Jen Schriever’s lights catch the magic of moonlight on water, and also adroitly cover up the puppeteers moving around behind the human performers with their felt alter egos. The story is earnest, but the humor, like the best of The Muppet Show and other Henson-inspired work, is also well balanced between corny and clever.
If you’re a fan of the original, you won’t want to miss this. If it’s new to you, the same advice applies. I genuinely hope this show becomes a repeat seasonal visitor to our own little town on the water.