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Where the Wild Things Are - The Play Wiki Information
Where the Wild Things Are
is a 1963 children's picture book by American writer Maurice Sendak, originally published by Harper & Row. The book is about the wild adventure of a boy named Max who is sent to his room without his supper by his mother as punishment for misbehaving. Max wears a distinctive wolf costume during his adventures and encounters various mythical creatures, the "wild things". Although just ten sentences long, the book is generally regarded as a masterpiece of American illustrated children's literature.
Written in 1963, it was awarded the Caldecott Medal in 1964. [1] It also won the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award and was an American Library Association Notable Book.
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WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE - THE PLAY TICKETS
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Story
The book tells the story of Max, who one evening plays around his home, "making mischief" in a wolf costume by chasing the dog with a fork and growling at his mom. As punishment, his mother sends him to bed without supper. In his room, a mysterious, wild forest grows out of his imagination, and Max journeys to the land of the Wild Things. The Wild Things are fearsome-looking monsters, but Max conquers them "by staring into their yellow eyes without blinking once," and he is made "the King of all Wild Things." However, he soon finds himself lonely and homesick, and he returns home to his bedroom, where he finds his supper waiting for him, still hot.
Background
The original concept for the book featured horses instead of monsters. According to Sendak, his publisher made the switch when she discovered that he could not draw horses, but thought that he "could at the very least draw 'a thing'!". [2] He replaced the horses with caricatures of his aunts and uncles, whom he had studied critically in his youth as an escape from their weekly visits to his family's Brooklyn home. [ [3] When working on the opera adaptation of the book with Oliver Knussen, Sendak gave the monsters the names of his relatives: Tzippy, Moishe, Bruno, Emile, and Bernard. [4]
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Francis Spufford suggests that the book is "one of the very few picture books to make an entirely deliberate, and beautiful, use of the psychoanalytic story of anger". [5]
Adaptations
In 1973 the book was adapted into an animated short directed by Gene Deitch. Two versions were released: the original 1973 version, with narration by Allen Swift and a musique concrete score composed by Deitch; and an updated version in 1988, was produced at Krátký Film, Prague for Weston Woods Studios with new music and narration by Peter Schickele. [6] In the 1980s Sendak worked with British composer Oliver Knussen on a children's opera based on the book, Where the Wild Things Are
.[ The opera received its first (incomplete) performance was in Brussels in 1980; the first complete performance of the final version was given by the Glyndebourne Touring Opera in London in 1984. This was followed by its first U.S. performance in Saint Paul, Minnesota in 1985. A concert performance was given at The Proms in the Royal Albert Hall, London in 2002.
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A live-action movie version directed by Spike Jonze is scheduled to be released on October 16, 2009. [7] The film will star Max Records as Max and Catherine Keener as his mother, feature Lauren Ambrose, Chris Cooper, James Gandolfini, Catherine O'Hara and Forest Whitaker providing the voices of some of the Wild Things. The screenplay was adapted by Jonze and Dave Eggers.
Notes
- American Library Association: Caldecott Medal Winners, 1938 - Present. URL accessed 27 May 2009.
- Warrick, Pamela (October 11, 1993) "Facing the Frightful Things". ''Los Angeles Times''. Retrieved August 27, 2009.
- Wild Things: The Art of Maurice Sendak
- Burns, p. 70.
- Spufford, p. 60.
- ''The Tennessean'', Nashville Scene p. 46, 12 March 2009, "Bach in Black" by Russell Johnston
- 'Where the Wild Things Are' gets long-awaited release date
References
- American Library Association: Caldecott Medal Winners, 1938 - Present. URL accessed 27 May 2009.
- Warrick, Pamela (October 11, 1993) "Facing the Frightful Things". ''Los Angeles Times''. Retrieved August 27, 2009.
- Wild Things: The Art of Maurice Sendak
- Burns, p. 70.
- Spufford, p. 60.
- ''The Tennessean'', Nashville Scene p. 46, 12 March 2009, "Bach in Black" by Russell Johnston
- 'Where the Wild Things Are' gets long-awaited release date
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