Now that the tours are all over, the script has been released for other theatres to use, and the San Diego youth theatre community was ready to go. Rising Stars Studio put it on last May, and Encore’s production will be followed this fall by San Diego Junior Theatre, J*Company, and La Jolla Stage Company. If Encore’s production is a harbinger of things to come, then we are in store for some fall fun!

Director Renee Kollar and Musical Director Heather Megill assembled a great cast backed up by some surprising work by a small youth orchestra who, with conductor Jeff Lehman, perform this complicated, non-stop musical quite flawlessly. The cast is led by the conductor’s son Martin Lehman as Horton the Elephant – the hearer of Whos who live a precarious existence on a tiny speck of dust. Complications arise when only Horton, with his humongous elephant ears, can hear the Whos, and all the other animals in the jungle torment the poor elephant and threaten to destroy the speck just for the heck.

Martin is a perfect fit for the loyal, big-hearted Horton who would give us his life to save the people who are people no matter how small. His genuine niceness comes shining through throughout, but will it be enough to save the Whos? Those Whos are made visible to us by the magic of the Cat in the Hat – the narrator of the story played by the flamboyant Roderick Collins who makes his voice sound realistically cartoonish. The adorable Teddy Blessing is Jo Jo the Who, a little boy who gets in trouble for thinking too many crazy and imaginative “thinks.” His parents, hoping to make him more normal and less controversial, send little Jo Jo to a military academy to have that imagination beaten out, but whether Jo Jo holds on to his uniqueness may determine the fate of their entire planet – a planet put in great jeopardy when the jungle animals steal Horton’s dust speck away.

The only one in the jungle who supports him is the little “bird next door” with a plain, one-feathered tail named Gertrude McFuzz, performed here by Whitney Fortmueller whose sweetness, loyalty, and determination to win Horton’s heart is clear from start to finish. And Horton needs all the help and sweetness he can get with The Sour Kangaroo (Ali Tilton) getting the other animals stirred up against him and the gang of Wickersham Brothers (Tim Evilsizer, Andrew Guerrero, and Jeff Strong) monkeying around with the helpless Whos. And then there’s the Amayzing Mayzie – a beautifully feathered and vain bird whose wild lifestyle ends up putting her on the nest until she takes advantage of Horton’s niceness and gets him to sit on the egg for her. Leslie Tammone is a riot in the part – hilariously self-absorbed while still capturing the touching moment when she says goodbye to Horton and her egg for good, and belting out her Amayzing Mayzie song with pizzazz.

Patti Mantz, Caitlin Schock, and Michelle Wadleigh – a chorus of three birds who sing much of the narration with exceptional voices and flair, lead a terrific ensemble of Whos and jungle animals got up in Roslyn Lehman’s fun and colorful costumes. Their lively Biggest Blame Fool and Havin’ a Hunch numbers, the trial of poor Horton, and their charismatic Oh, the Thinks You Can Think ends and begins the show on inspiring notes.

Performed through July 18, 2004.

Rob Hopper
San Diego Playbill