Library Lion, a 2006 Candlewick Press picture book written by Michelle Knudsen and illustrated by Kevin Hawkes, recently made its U.S. theatrical debut at the Boston Public Library. The musical is the premiere production of Adam Theater, co-founded by creative director Ran Bechor, an award-winning Israeli playwright and theater director who currently teaches at Harvard University; and executive director Karin Sharav-Zalkind, a designer specializing in interior design.
Library Lion, which introduces a well-intentioned lion who inadvertently causes a ruckus in a library, became a New York Times bestseller and was named one of TIME Magazine’s Top 100 Children’s Books of All Time. It has been translated into 24 languages and has more than two million copies in print worldwide.
The work had a circuitous path from picture book to musical theater production. Library Lion was originally adapted for the stage in 2013 by Israeli playwright Eli Bijaoui and has since been viewed by audiences at more than 500 international performances.
After Sharav-Zalkind and Bechor met through a mutual friend in the Boston area early in 2023, the two bonded over their mutual devotion to making artistic and cultural opportunities available to children and to the meaningful impact of introducing them to theatrical productions. Their discussions planted the seed for what became a nonprofit professional theater, Adam Theater (named after Bechor’s now 10-year-old son, Adam).
Since both founders were familiar with Library Lion from reading the picture book to their own children, and Bechor knows Bijaoui from the theater circuit, he reached out to the playwright to inquire about buying the rights to Library Lion, and Bijaoui connected Bechor to Knudson.
Cue the Music
Rights obtained, Sharav-Zalkind and Bechor (who serves as director of the Library Lion musical) commissioned Israeli composer Yoni Rechter to create the music for the new production. They also lined up Jim Henson’s Creature Shop to build a life-size, three-person lion puppet to headline the show. The set designer is Cameron Anderson, and Kate Brehm is the movement puppet director.
Throughout September, more than 1,000 students from Boston-area schools attended free performances of Library Lion at BPL, where areas of the library were turned into an immersive stage set. The hour-long event began at the Grand Staircase of the library’s historic McKim Building and moved through two galleries before concluding in the Boylston Room, the first children’s reading room in a public library in America.
A stage production of Library Lion will be open to the public from January 10 to 19 at the Boston Center for the Arts. Tickets for performances are available for purchase at Adam Theater’s website.
“Adam Theater has seen high interest from the local community,” Sharav-Zalkind said of the new cultural venture. “We have identified a significant gap in Boston’s professional theater offerings for young audiences. While seasonal productions and Broadway tours visit the city, Adam Theater believes that high-quality theater for young audiences should be a consistent part of Boston’s cultural landscape. Adam Theater’s mission is to ensure that every child in the Boston area has access to the high-quality art they deserve.”
