Interview: Robert Saoud Roars About LIBRARY LION

As an actor, musical theater performer, and cabaret artist, Robert Saoud is used to getting all kinds of reactions from all types of audiences.

Saoud is currently winning new fans among the children of greater Boston, who are flocking to see him as Mr. McBee, the Librarian, in the Adam Theater production of “Library Lion” – a stage production adapted from Michelle Knudsen’s best-selling 2006 book of the same name about a lion who visits a library and becomes a hero to its young patrons, with illustrations by Kevin Hawkes – at the Calderwood Pavilion, Boston Center for the Arts, through January 25.

A nonprofit professional company founded in 2023 and dedicated to creating theater for young people, Adam Theater has used proceeds of a $150,000 grant from the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Foundation to make the play available to be seen by all second-grade students in the Boston Public Schools (BPS) over two years. The grant pays for tickets, school bus transportation, and more. This marks the company’s third production of “Library Lion,” with Saoud starring in all three, for audiences numbering in the thousands from BPS and other regional schools.

“I really like Mr. McBee as a character. He loves structure and quiet, and lives for rules. Mostly, though, he loves the library and what books represent, with their ability to take you wherever you want to go, at least in your mind,” said Saoud by telephone recently. “Kids are very engaged, too, and so happy to be seeing this show.”

Saoud, who grew up outside Detroit and now makes his home in Lexington, takes pleasure from the happiness “Library Lion” so often gives its audiences.

“The joy on their faces is truly something to behold. They talk back, and sometimes even yell back, at those of us onstage. My character breaks the fourth wall to speak directly to the kids, which I enjoy quite a bit. They come right out and ask me why Mr. McBee is so mean,” says Saoud. “I tell them it’s okay to be mean onstage when you’re playing a character, but less so in real life.”

Adam Theater co-founder and artistic director Ran Bechor helms this year’s production, with book and lyrics by Eli Bijaoui, and music by Yoni Rechter and Roy Friedman. Live music is being performed by pianist Ori Raz, cellist Thiago Wolf, and Julia Spretty on clarinet, flute and saxophone, under the music direction of Tomer Sne.

“The score is terrific, but the music is kind of hard to learn,” acknowledges Saoud. “When they cast me, they said, ‘We’re going to make this work.’ Fortunately, that is exactly what’s happened. Now, I really like singing the songs.”

Joining Saoud in the cast are Jayden Declet (Michelle), Aaron Mancaniello (Kevin), Janis Hudson (Ms. Merriweather), and Clara Hevia (Storyteller). A life-sized lion puppet designed by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop is operated by Sophie Kauffman, Sydney Grant, and Sarah Nolen, with help from puppet and movement director Kate Brehm.

“Learning to work alongside the Lion puppet was a slow and time-consuming process but worth the effort,” says Saoud. “The puppet is not only great to look at, but its contribution to the show is invaluable.”

A past Fellow of the Eugene O’Neill Cabaret Symposium, Saoud – seen most recently with Boston and Broadway performer Mary Callanan in last month's concert double bill “A Cosmopolitan Christmas” at the Huntington – knows something about adding value. He’s done just that in a host of memorable performances at Lyric Stage Boston, SpeakEasy Stage, Bill Hanney’s North Shore Music Theatre, The Huntington, The Umbrella Stage, Greater Boston Stage Company, “Shear Madness” at the Charles Playhouse, and numerous shows at Wheelock Family Theatre, including “Hairspray,” “Ragtime,” “Anne of Green Gables,” “Pippi Longstocking,” and three productions of “Charlotte’s Web,”

In April, Saoud will return to the role of larger-than-life Baltimore housewife Edna Turnblad in “Hairspray” at Umbrella Stage in Concord, a part he first played in Wheelock’s unconventional 2014 production of the Tony Award-winning musical.

“At Umbrella, I’ll be playing the traditional Edna, which John Waters conceived as a female character to be portrayed by a male actor in drag,” says Saoud. “At Wheelock, I played Edna as a male character in drag.”

Perhaps thinking of the wonderful Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman score awaiting him in Concord this spring, Saoud said, “I love doing musicals, but I love comedies as well because they don’t have production numbers, so they’re easier to do. Come to think of it, though, I love doing straight plays, too.”