New Winnie-the-Pooh musical to debut in New York this fall
Winnie-the-Pooh will travel from the forest to find a home off-Broadway this fall.
Winnie the Pooh: The New Musical Adaptation will bring together Pooh, Christopher Robin, Eeyore, Tigger and the gang in a new production developed by Jonathan Rockefeller.
The show will feature songs by the Grammy-winning Sherman Brothers with additional music from A.A. Milne, and will be told using life-size puppetry. Richard and Robert Sherman have written music for Disney classics Mary Poppins, The Jungle Book and The Aristocats.
Winnie the Pooh: The New Musical Adaptation opens Oct. 21, 2021 at Time Square's Theater Row.
Tickets go on sale June 1.
Created by British writer A. A. Milne and illustrator E.H. Shepard, Winnie-the-Pooh has Canadian origins.
"Winnie" — or "Winnipeg" — was the name of a bear cub owned by the Canadian lieutenant Harry Colebourn during the First World War, which he purchased in White River, Ont.
The bear ended up overseas in England with Colebourn and accompanied his brigade. When the unit had to go to France to fight, Winnie was donated to the London Zoo.
Milne and his son — Christopher Robin Milne — were fascinated by the animal, and Christopher named his teddy bear after it.
Milne came up with the name "Winnie-the-Pooh" by combining "Winnie" with the name of a swan that Christopher would feed regularly and would refer to as "Pooh."
With files from CBC Books
