Dead to rights: Bert Bernardi and Scott Simonelli have adapted Robert San Souci's creepy children's book Cinderella Skeleton for the stage. It plays for two weekends leading up to Halloween, at the Educational Center for the Arts' Arts Hall.
Bert Bernardi, Hoo Hah! He’s the quirky, campy king of children’s theater in Connecticut. Bernardi staged his loose adaptations of fairy tales and holiday legends at Bridgeport’s Downtown Cabaret Theatre for nearly three decades before deciding to investigate other venues in the state, forming Pantochino Productions with his partner Jimmy Johansmeyer.
After 28 years perking up the Park City, Bernardi now wants to conquer New Haven. “It’s a great city for us to look for a permanent home in,” Bernardi said in a phone interview a couple of weeks ago. “We want to stay in the New Haven area. There are a lot of things here like what we do—the children’s museum…”
Bernardi’s first show in town is dead on arrival. That’s on purpose. Cinderella Skeleton—The Musical is based on the popular picture book by prolific kid’s-lit author Robert D. San Souci. It plays in the Arts Hall of the Educational Center for the Arts, at the corner of Orange and Audubon streets in New Haven, for the next two weekends, Oct. 21-23 and 28-30 with performances Fridays at 7:30 p.m., Saturday at 2 & 5:30 p.m. and Sun at 2 p.m. More details, and ticket sales, here.
San Souci’s book (vividly illustrated by the nationally syndicated political cartoonist David Catrow) retells the Cinderella story with a Tim Burton/Neil Gaiman graveyard slant. The rhyming, rigor-mortis-stricken romp has the bony title character fleeing “Prince Charnel”’s ball and losing not just a slipper but her whole brittle foot:
Cinderella Skeleton,
Ignoring the thump of her footless stump,
Reached her coach and cried, “Away!
I must be home by the break of day!”
They raced pell-mell past the palace gate;
The prince kept pleading, “Lady, wait!”
In his hand, a foot—in his throat, a lump.
Ain’t that charming? Bernardi had been wanting to adapt the book for years when he was finally granted the rights by San Souci in 2006. It was staged that year at Downtown Cabaret but wouldn’t stay dead. It’s being resurrencted for New Haven at Halloweentime with the same actress, Mary Mannix, who starred as Cinderella Skeleton five years ago. Jimmy Johansmeyer designed the costumes, and also performs in the show as “Tall Bony Jane,” one of the evil stepsisters. The songs were composed by Killingsworth-based composer Scott Simonelli. “This was the first show that Scott and I did together,” Bernardi says, “and we’ve done a dozen shows since. The score isn’t frightening—it’s sweet pop music.”
Besides big productions such as Cinderella Skeleton, Bernardi tours short shows around public schools and occasionally does strictly adult fare. He and Joe Landry (whose adaptation of the Frank Capra film It’s a Wonderful Life will be at the Long Wharf Theatre Dec. 7-31) did a reading of Lifeboat Darling, a spoof of the Alfred Hitchcock/Tallulah Bankhead disaster flick Lifeboat, at Firehouse 12 last year.
But grown-up tastes are taken into account on every show Bert Bernardi does. “For Mom and Dad, a lot of children’s theater can be painful to sit through,” he admits. “I try to do something everybody enjoys. As far as the writing goes, I learned from the greats—Disney, Bugs Bunny, I Love Lucy and The Three Stooges.” The hour-long, two-act Cinderella Skeleton, Bernardi says, is “structured like a musical. He intones the opening lines, about a magical graveyard.
Another reason to attend: Sugar Bakery and Sweet Shop, which won the Cupcake Wars competition on the Food Network, has fashioned a special corpse-themed cupcake in honor of Cinderella Skeleton, the Musical. The terrifying treat is available only at the East Haven bakery… and during intermissions at the ECA Arts Hall.
Bert Bernardi’s hoping to adapt more contemporary children’s books for the stage. It’s something he started exploring in the final years of his tenure at Bridgeport, and though he sighs that the process “can take years,” he’s found books that are worth the patience and effort. One of them, Otto the Boy Who Loved Cars, is by a established children’s author Kara LaReau, who happened to perform in Bernardi’s Downtown Cabaret Theatre ensemble company back in the 1980s.
He’s also happy with his new location, which is behaving like a brick-and-mortar fairy godmother. “The Arts Hall is a lovely space. The ECA has been very welcoming, and wants more.”
Bring out your dead!
David Catrow illustration from Robert San Souci's Cinderella Skeleton. The book was published in 2000 by Harcourt Inc.'s Silver Whistle imprint.