Review: A YEAR WITH FROG AND TOAD at Imagination Stage

Beloved children’s book characters Frog and Toad have been around for 50 years! I somehow missed the boat on this when I was a kid, however, my son sleeps with “Frog and Toad Storybook Favorites” in his bed every single night. Needless to say, he loves these stories, so we were extremely excited to see A Year with Frog and Toad at Imagination Stage in Bethesda, MD.

Right from the start, there is a lot of action: singing, dancing… and birds! All the cast members have great voices, with one of the highlights for me being that of Sydney Dionne who plays one of the birds, but also four other roles.

The musical takes the audience through a year with Frog and Toad, before it’s time for them to hibernate once again. Deimoni Brewington plays Frog and Evan Casey is his bestie Toad. Their chemistry and friendship is key to properly portraying the characters author Arnold Label came up with all those years ago, and the actors do it well. Friendship, understanding and determination: these are all things children will learn about while, at the same time, laughing at the adventures of the characters. I had a smile on my face pretty much the entire time.

I also liked the decision to make use of the entire space, and not just the stage. Snail (played by Karen Vincent) pops up throughout the musical and she travels, rather slowly of course, among the seats. Great choices by Director Ashleigh King.

My son was thrilled to see the stories we read about every night played out before his very eyes. Every time a new number got started, he turned to me to excitedly guess which story we were about to see. My younger son also loved it and could be heard yelling “Whoa, it’s flying!,” when a kite was part of the story. Frog and Toad diehards will know this as the story “The Kite”.

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