‘A Year With Frog and Toad’ leaps back into the spotlight at Children's Theatre Company

When brothers Willie and Rob Reale were approached more than 20 years ago to write a musical based on Arnold Lobel’s beloved Frog and Toad books, they took a leap of faith that resulted in a Tony-nominated show with deep roots in Minneapolis.

A Year With Frog and Toad returns April 23 to the Children’s Theatre Company, where it was first presented in 2002 before a Broadway staging (and three more CTC productions in 2004, 2007 and 2016).

Serendipity — and Lobel’s daughter, Adrianne — brought the work to the brothers.

“Rob and I both knew Adrianne socially,” said Willie Reale, who wrote the musical’s book and lyrics. “What planted the idea in her mind was that I wrote a song for this charity event which was really whimsical. A light bulb went off and she said, ‘Oh, these are the people to write this musical.’”

That perfect fit was clear when the two read the stories.

“The books are beautiful, and as terse as they are, there’s a lot going on underneath,” Willie said. “I was skeptical at first when she sent them over; we hadn’t had our kids yet, so we had no truck with the books.

“But there’s a real beating heart there — they’re like two Victorian gentlemen, one who has extreme anxiety. It was clear that the stories would bear expansion” into a full-blown musical.

Ah, but what kind of music?

“We didn’t get it right the first time,” admitted Rob Reale, who wrote the music. “We didn’t have any direction on genre, and when we went back to [Adrianne Lobel] it didn’t seem right.

“She had memories of her father writing and drawing the books in their den in Brooklyn, and he would have Fred Astaire records playing. She was thinking of that. So stylistically, that’s where it landed.”

Willie added that “it was a little vest-pocket musical, a tight little charmer” with vaudevillian overtones, as befitting a jaunty tale of cheerful Frog and curmudgeonly Toad in their cookie-baking, kite-flying and pond-swimming excursions.

An early workshop with CTC artistic director Peter Brosius caught the eye of Bob Boyett, a film, stage and TV producer, who bought the rights to eventually bring the work to New York.

Taking the show from its Children’s Theatre premiere to Broadway, where it was nominated for three Tony Awards in 2003 (best musical, best book of a musical, best original score) was challenging, especially after it was booked into the large Cort Theatre following a run at the intimate New Victory Theatre.

“It was a different kind of children’s theater for that time,” Rob said. “Disney was already on Broadway, so family spectacle was already happening. [A Year With Frog and Toad] had a mom-and-pop feel to it. We went from a jewel of a house [New Victory] to the Cort; it felt like a lot to ask, to make that leap.”

The brothers’ next leap is a musical based on their own “big, hilarious Sicilian lesbian” mother.

“Every one who ever met her said you have to write this character,” Willie said.

Her recent passing led them to determine the time was right.

“We’re telling it in the style of vaudeville, with a nod to [Italian dramatist Luigi] Pirandello,” he said.

It promises to be a rollicking show. The New Jersey upbringing of the brothers, the two oldest of six, was “rather feral,” Willie said.

“Our parents were loving and overwhelmed, simultaneously. There was very little active cultural parenting. We had one show album in the house — Man of La Mancha. I just remember wearing that thing out. We didn’t live far from the city so we could go in and look at Broadway, and we found ourselves in school productions. We just got the bug.”

Rob attended music school but “I never considered writing anything for the stage” until Willie reached out to him for help with a project.

“We found we really enjoyed writing music together,” he said. “It’s so exciting, the idea of building musical theater from scratch.”

The two, who also have written extensively for movies and TV, started working together in earnest in 1984. And to answer the age-old question: For the Reale brothers, the lyrics precede the music.

“If we haven’t got a story that’s satisfying — beginning, middle, end, a hero’s journey — we just, over time, have found that once you have a solid story it’s easier to write,” Willie said. “So, for us the words almost always come first.”

Rob added: “It wasn’t always that way. But now, we need to know what the song is about and go from there. It’s the most collaborative thing you can imagine; it’s so good when you get it right. I can’t find that anywhere else. The dramatic energy of a musical — it’s pretty great.”

They also have drawn energy from the 52nd Street Project, which Willie Reale founded in 1981 to bring children together with professional theater artists.

“One of the things we learned since working with the 52nd Street Project, when we would write for them, we would never, ever think we were writing for kids,” Rob said. “There were odd meters, and these kids are nailing these parts. We just didn’t tell them it’s hard. They’re just doing it.”

“The lesson that came home to roost is that kids want to be treated with a certain level of sophistication,” Willie said.

In the same spirit, the Reales hope new audiences to A Year With Frog and Toad go in with no preconceived notions about children’s theater.

“Just walk in cold,” Rob advised. “If we’ve done our job right, and Lobel did his job right, and Peter Brosius has done it right, they’ll be drawn into it pretty quick.”

“Adults expecting a kiddie show will be surprised by it,” Willie said, “because there’s rewards for both ages.” 

Event details

What: A Year With Frog and Toad
Where: Children’s Theatre Company
When: April 23-June 16
Tickets: $15-$87.