New York Musical Theatre Festival

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  • Windman, Matt (August 24, 2006). "Eye-Gouging, Incest and Children's Theater: Oedipus for Kids! Announces Full NYMF Cast". Playbill. Retrieved July 25, 2020. [318 words, discussion of upcoming NYMF production]
  • Gladden, Michelle (September 7, 2006). "Local graduate turns "Oedipus" into a musical comedy". Asbury Park Press. Asbury Park, N.J. p. K10. ProQuest 437829726. [580 words, background, discussion of upcoming NYMF production]
  • Allen, Kerri (19 September 2006). "Oedipus for Kids!". Backstage. Retrieved July 25, 2020. [Negative review of Rake Theater/NYMF performance, 272 words]
  • Isherwood, Charles (September 25, 2006). "Take a Provocative Concept, Add a Grabby Title and Some Catchy Songs, Put on a Show". The New York Times. p. E5. ProQuest 433408724.
    • "A cute spoof of children's theater, with some truly funny songs and endearingly loopy performances from a cast of just three. But at two acts and two hours, it overstayed its welcome. Sophocles got the darn story told in 90 minutes, guys. Maybe the creators could cut the uninspired backstage shenanigans and stage a shorter version with another title from the fake company's repertory: Titus Andronicus Bakes a Pie."

Other productions

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  • Cavener, Jim (January 19, 2009). "'Oedipus for Kids' a ribald sendup on classic literature". Ashville Citizen–Times. Ashville, N.C. p. T15. ProQuest 1471861103. [Positive review of N.C. Stage Company production, 476 words]
  • Shaw, Ted (September 26, 2009). "Despite title, comedy definitely not for kids". The Windsor Star. Windsor, Ont. p. B4. ProQuest 254912726. [Mixed-positive review of Kordazone production, 507 words]

Academic discussions of Oedipus adaptations

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  • Foley, Helene P (2012). "Appendix D. Professional Productions and New Versions of Oedipus Tyrannus". Reimagining Greek Tragedy on the American Stage. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 274. ISBN 978-0-520-27244-6. JSTOR 10.1525/j.ctt1ppwmg.15.
    • "2006 Oedipus for Kids, with a book by Kimberly Patterson and Gild Varod, music by Robert J. Saferstein, and directed by Dan Fields (New York Times, September 25, 2006)."
  • Lauriola, Rosanna (2017). "Oedipus the King". In Lauriola, Rosanna; Demetriou, Kyriakos (eds.). Brill's Companion to the Reception of Sophocles. Brill’s Companion to Classical Reception. Vol. 10. Leiden: Brill. pp. 268–269. doi:10.1163/9789004300941_005. ISBN 978-90-04-30094-1.
    • " A completely different musical, classifiable as a ‘Musical Dark Comedy’,[a] is Oedipus for Kids, with music by Robert J. Saferstein and Gil Varod, first performed in 2006[b] by a three-persons troupe (the Fuzzy Duck Theatre Company) dedicated to performing classics for children. Despite their ‘mission’ and the title of this musical, Oedipus for Kids is not really for kids.[c] Lasting about two hours, it has been described as “A spoof of children’s theater, with some truly funny songs and endearingly loopy performance from a cast of just three”, as “Catchy and Funny!”, and as “Funny, well-crafted, and with a charming score”.[d]

Notes

  1. ^ 405 The information is from the publisher Samuel French, Inc. (Make Theatre Happen)’s website: http://www.samuelfrench.com/p/502/oedipus-for-kids. The printed manuscript/book (2009) is by Gild Varol and Kimberley Patterson; its frontispiece adds a subtitle which reads “A new musical gone horribly, horribly wrong.”
  2. ^ 406 Foley (2012) 274.
  3. ^ 407 In the Samuel French, Inc.’s website (see above, n. 405), under the entry ‘cautions’, we in fact read “Strong Language, Mild Adult Theme,” and under the entry ‘Target Audience’ we read: “Adult, Senior, Teen (Age 14–18)”
  4. ^ 408 The quotations are selected pieces of the short reviews available on the website mentioned above in n. 405.
  • Hunt, Kristin (2018). "From Antigone to Antonia: Moving beyond the teleological model of tragedy for young audiences". Youth Theatre Journal. 32 (2): 106. doi:10.1080/08929092.2018.1520767.
    • "Tellingly, Gil Varod’s Oedipus for Kids! (2009), a spoof of children’s theatre aimed at adult audiences, derives its humor from the absurd notion of performing a play about incest for children. Featuring songs such as “My Lover Is My Husband Is My Son,” and including a subplot involving “Beanz! Coffee for Kids,” the satire of children’s theatre paints the exposure of kids to “adult” situations like incest (and coffee drinking) as absurd on its face. These comic treatments draw upon a real tradition of tragedy-lite for children, revising the moral dilemmas of the originals into comic contexts, putting their bad acts at a humorous distance."

Script

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  • Varod, Gil; Patterson, Kimberly; Saferstein, Robert J. (2009). Oedipus for Kids!: a new musical gone horribly, horribly wrong. New York: Samuel French. ISBN 978-0-573-66358-1.