MRS MCTHING - by Jack Urbont and Michael Colby

"How Do You Make Magic?" - Featured in A STAGE KINDLY presents "Debut" and "Encore", "The Loveliest Child In The World" featured in "Encore". "Ya've Got What It Takes" featured in "Bravo"

Based upon Mary Chase's hit play, MRS. McTHING is a musical full of merriment, mayhem, and magic. Set in the late 1930s, the musical revolves around characters who lead incredible fantasy lives.  There's MRS. HOWARD V. LARUE III-one of the richest widows in the world-who feels deprived because she wants her 11-year-old son to be like Lord Fauntleroy, when he's more like Peck's Bad Boy.  The son, HOWAY, gives the expression "spoiled rotten" new meaning, as he aspires to be the world's youngest gangster. Still, their fantasy lives are small potatoes compared to that of little MIMI, the adopted daughter of a tumultuous witch named MRS. McTHING.  When MIMI, seeking a human playmate, is snubbed by HOWAY and MRS. LARUE, all hell breaks loose.  MRS. McTHING casts spell after spell.  HOWAY gets his wish to work alongside gangsters when MRS. McTHING plops him into a squalid mobland lunchroom:  but he is forced to work there as a menial during hard times.  However, HOWAY soon advances in the ranks of second-rate, would-be gangsters.  The chief local hood, POISON EDDIE SCHELLENBACH, convinces his gang (VIRGIL, THE CHEF, and STINKER) that HOWAY is rotten enough to catapult them to new gangland glory;  they elevate HOWAY to full-fledged mobster. Meanwhile, MRS. LARUE has gotten her wish for a perfect son: via a wooden lookalike that MRS. McTHING has planted in the Larue mansion.  Yet, the lookalike HOWAY proves so appallingly perfect, he starts giving MRS. LARUE an inferiority complex. When the real HOWAY phones his mother, she realizes there's a fraud in the house and goes searching for the real HOWAY.  But when she locates him-at the mob lunchroom-she too is trapped there;  MRS. McTHING casts another spell and transforms the rich woman into a charwoman, herself forced to work for the mob.  There are consolations, including how MRS. LARUE thereby grows closer to HOWAY; as well as how she strikes up an oddball flirtation with POISON EDDIE.  Together, the gang and Larue family hit upon a way to pull off a magnificent heist, through which to reinstate MRS. LARUE and HOWAY in their rightful home. Before these predicaments are resolved, events include:  a Witches' Sabbath of goblins and ghoulies, a hair-raising showdown with MRS. McTHING, and all kinds of magical reversals. Requires a cast of 8 principals (2 females; 4 males; 1 boy; 1 girl) and chorus of 5 to 6;  unit set.  Visit website: http://www.michaelcolby.com/mrsmcthing.html