Primarily based on the Pete the Cat kids’s guide collection by Kimberly and James Dean with script and lyrics by Sarah Hammond and music by Will Aronson, Pete the Cat: A Stay Rock Musical has delighted younger audiences nationwide since its Off-Broadway debut in 2017 — largely owing to the recognition of its central character.
Grooving his means via numerous adventures with a skateboard, guitar, and funky sneakers and singing catchy, upbeat songs via over 100 image books up to now, plus an Amazon Prime collection, Pete the Cat is a personality that appeared destined to star in a stage musical. In Creativeness Stage’s manufacturing of the Pete musical, directed by Kathryn Chase Bryer, Michael Perrie Jr. embodies the feline rock star with limitless power, swagger, and chill vibes, wearing a fringed blue jacket worn open over a blue and purple tie-dyed shirt, peace signal necklace, and bell bottoms (Paris Francesca, costume designer), with crimson Gibson Epiphone guitar to match his crimson Converse sneakers.
When Pete will get scooped up by the Cat Catcher (Kylee Márquez-Downie) for rocking out late at evening in a neighbor’s yard, he’s adopted by the Biddle household, whose daughter Olive (additionally performed by Márquez-Downie) desperately desires a pet cat. When Olive seems to be allergic to cats, Pete strikes into her older brother Jimmy’s room. Quadry Brown performs Jimmy as the right distinction to Perrie’s easygoing Pete. Showing with a big stack of books in hand and an extended record of handwritten guidelines on his bed room wall, Brown’s Jimmy, a extremely anxious second grader, desires nothing greater than an ideal report card and an immaculately clear room, leading to an Odd Couple-like conflict with Pete of their duet “Joyful Roommates.”
The unlikely friendship that develops between Perrie’s Pete and Brown’s Jimmy is on the coronary heart of the musical, as Pete’s freewheeling way of living shakes up Jimmy’s inflexible routines and expectations at dwelling and faculty.
Pete is just not the one foil to Jimmy’s uptight persona. Olive, Jimmy’s high-spirited youthful sister, eagerly welcomes the blue cat to the Biddle dwelling, though she sneezes each time she’s in his presence. Márquez-Downie as Olive performs up this operating gag to nice comedic impact. Nonetheless, her huge quantity “The Sneezing Music” finds her mopping the ground whereas wearing a Nineteen Fifties-inspired bubblegum-pink ensemble and throwing herself at Pete, claiming she desires to marry him. Whereas Márquez-Downie belts out the music with the exuberance of Olive’s supposedly five-year-old character, the end result felt like one thing out of a mid-2010s Meghan Trainor music video and baffled the youngsters and adults within the viewers.
Brigid Wallace Harper and Jay Frisby are amusingly neurotic as Jimmy and Olive’s dad and mom — Harper reminding Frisby that he’s already stockpiled 200 cans of cat meals in preparation for Pete’s arrival means that Jimmy’s tightly wound persona is inherited from his father. But the script doesn’t give their grownup characters — together with Jimmy’s trainer Mrs. Creech (Harper) — a lot to work with. I discovered it simpler to purchase right into a guitar-playing blue cat because the star of a musical than to consider in Mrs. Creech being so star-struck by Pete’s look in her classroom that she alters her complete lesson plan, or the elder Biddles taking parenting recommendation from a cat.
Nonetheless, the adults are minor characters on this musical, with Jimmy and Pete’s madcap musical journey (in a cool, rainbow-colored VW bus) taking heart stage. With spot-on sound results (Justin Schmitz, sound designer) and its personal extremely catchy theme music (“It’s a VW Bus”) that my children sang for days afterward, the bus performed a starring function. Units (Tomya Pryor), props (Andrea “Dre” Moore), and lighting (Dean Leong) all evoked the whimsical, colourful world of the Deans’ illustrations from the Pete the Cat books and illuminated Pete and Jimmy’s journey underneath the ocean, via outer house, and to Paris as Jimmy learns to let go of his perfectionism and “colour exterior the strains” every so often. Luis Garcia’s projections of googly-eyed mud bunnies, outdated Cheetos, and a misplaced penny underneath the Biddles’ sofa (the place Jimmy hides in embarrassment on the considered failing second grade artwork class) additionally deserve a shout-out.
With 14 musical numbers sung by the solid and a further eight instrumental tracks in a 55-minute play, Deborah Jacobson’s music course and Jennifer J. Hopkins’ choreography hold the manufacturing shifting rapidly, and the solid’s power, vocals and dancing skills are equal to the duty. Whereas the music and the vibes usually far exceed the plot in Pete the Cat: A Stay Rock Musical, it matches completely into the “Pete the Cat-verse” and supplied an gratifying leisure for the households and summer season camp teams that stuffed the home on a wet morning at Creativeness Stage.
Operating Time: Roughly 55 minutes, no intermission.
Pete the Cat: A Stay Rock Musical performs via August 2, 2026, at Creativeness Stage, 4908 Auburn Avenue, Bethesda, MD. Tickets begin at $15 and might be bought on-line or by calling the field workplace at 301-280-1660.
Finest for Ages 4 to 10.
Pete the Cat: A Stay Rock Musical
Script and Lyrics by Sarah Hammond
Music by Will Aronson
Primarily based on the Pete the Cat collection of books by Kimberly and James Dean
CAST
Michael Perrie Jr.*: Pete/Dance Captain
Quadry Brown*: Jimmy
Kylee Márquez-Downie*: Olive/Cat Catcher/Eloise/Astronaut
Brigid Wallace Harper*: Mother/Grumpy Toad/Mrs. Creech/Mona Lisa
Jay Frisby*: Dad/Gus the Platypus/Barnaby/Shark/Actor ASM
Dylan Toms: Understudy Pete
Kate Lurie: Understudy Olive/Mother
James B. Mernin: Understudy Jimmy/Dad
CREATIVE TEAM
Kathryn Chase Bryer: Director
Deborah Jacobson: Music Director
Jennifer J. Hopkins: Choreographer
Tomya Pryor: Scenic Designer
Paris Francesca: Costume Designer
Dean Leong: Lighting Designer
Justin Schmitz**: Sound Designer
Luis Garcia: Projections Designer
Andrea “Dre” Moore: Resident Props Designer & Puppet Designer
Ben Harvey: Assistant Lighting Designer
Samantha (Sam) Leahan*: Resident Stage Supervisor
*Member, Actor’s Fairness Affiliation
**Member, United Scenic Artists, Native USA 829 of the IATSE
IMPORTANT DATES
- Meet the Actors: Saturday, July 11 at 4:00 PM, Sunday, July 12 at 10:00 AM, Saturday, July 18 at 4:00 PM, Saturday, July 25 at 4:00 PM
- Scouts Day: Saturday, July 11 at 4:00 PM
- ASL-Interpreted Efficiency: Saturday, July 25 at 1:00 PM
- Sensory-Pleasant Efficiency: Sunday, July 12 at 10:00 AM
