The classic book, The Velveteen Rabbit, comes to life this holiday season when Enchantment Theatre Company in association with Healy Entertainment stages a brand new musical version of the tale with puppets, masked actors and magic. Also featuring beautiful scenery and an original score by Grammy and Tony Award-winning composer Don Sebesky and award-winning lyricist, Gloria Nissenson, this imaginative production offers something new in family entertainment. The Velveteen Rabbit opens on December 10 and runs through December 30 with two dozen performances at the new Suzanne Roberts Theatre, located at 480 South Broad Street in Philadelphia.

Based on the beloved book by Margery Williams, Enchantment Theatre’s Velveteen Rabbit tells the story of a plush toy bunny coming to life because of the transforming power of a boy’s love. The production offers surprises galore, including larger-than-life puppets and spectacular magic that will captivate audiences both young and old.

While the story of The Velveteen Rabbit is familiar to many, the music is new. Inspired by a great appreciation for this classic bedtime story that he and his wife read to their daughters, Sebesky wrote and recorded songs for The Velveteen Rabbit. A work in progress for years, he collaborated with lyricist Gloria Nissenson (Parents Choice Award winner) and his wife Janina Serden, a singer and songwriter, and produced The Velveteen Rabbit CD in 2007. Sebesky’s music underscores Enchantment Theatre Company’s production. The show features additional music by composer Charles Gilbert, who has headed the Musical Theater Program at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia since its inception in 1990.

In search for the ideal theatrical company to bring Sebesky’s music to the stage, the New York based Healy Entertainment, an arts and entertainment production, management and consulting company, selected Enchantment Theatre Company above other family theater troupes for the national tour of The Velveteen Rabbit. “I envisioned a marriage between Enchantment Theatre’s unique style of storytelling and Don Sebesky’s music,” says Producer Elizabeth Healy, president of Healy Entertainment. “It’s a wonderful union because each entity enhances each other’s work, bringing a quality production to the stage.”

Sebesky agrees. “My vision was the music and the CD, but Enchantment Theatre has presented their own adaptation of the music and book, drawing on mime, magic and puppets to tell the story. The result is an exciting and moving performance.”

Sebesky is a highly-respected composer-arranger with an enormous body of work. As a recording artist, and through his collaborations with other artists, he has received 25 Grammy nominations (three time winner), three Tony nominations (2000 winner), won two Drama Desk Awards, has been nominated for three Emmy Awards, and has won four Clio Awards.

Healy Entertainment and its president Elizabeth Healy have been involved in all phases of the arts and entertainment industry as a producer, manager and consultant for more than a decade, with clients that include Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishing, Universal Music Group, Sony/BMG, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, and Herbie Hancock among others. Joining Healy on The Velveteen Rabbit is Associate Producer Geoff Cohen, who is currently producing Gemini The Musical and Little Egypt in the New York Musical Theatre Festival 2007 (NYMF); and recently production managed The Recording Academy Honors for the New York Chapter of the National Academy for the Recording Arts and Sciences. Cohen has worked as a vice president for Radio City Entertainment, where he produced and general managed A Christmas Carol and The Wizard of Oz in New York and on tour.

Enchantment Theatre Company, the locally based company that performs throughout the world, has been playing to Philadelphia audiences since 2000, when it committed itself to becoming the city’s theatrical group for children and families. Each year the company has presented a lavish holiday production on a downtown stage, including such favorites as Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella and Pinocchio. This winter marks the company’s debut of The Velveteen Rabbit in its brand new home, the Suzanne Roberts Theatre, where it is the resident children’s theater company for this first season.

Founded in 1979 by Jennifer Blatchley Smith and Landis Smith, both writers and performers, and expanded to an artistic partnership with Resident Director Leslie Reidel in 1995, Enchantment Theatre Company has toured its original productions all over the world. The company has toured in the Far East six times, performing in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore. It also has performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City and at the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington, D. C. In addition to touring its productions across the United States and overseas, Enchantment Theatre stages additional repertoire with symphony orchestras, including The Philadelphia Orchestra, with which it collaborated on a theatrical adaptation of Igor Stravinsky’s “The Firebird” at The Kimmel Center.

The Velveteen Rabbit is 60 minutes and features a question and answer session following each performance. It is being performed at the Suzanne Roberts Theatre, 480 South Broad Street, Philadelphia. Tickets are $26 for adults and $14 for children 12 and under, with student matinee and group rates available. Tickets can be purchased by calling the Enchantment Theatre Company Box Office at (215) 881-9899 or by visiting www.enchantmenttheatre.org.

Show times are as follows:
Monday – Friday, Dec.10-14 at 10 a.m.
Saturday, Dec.15 at 1 and 7 p.m.
Sunday, Dec. 16 at 1 and 4 p.m.
Monday – Thursday, Dec.17-20 at 10 a.m.
Saturday and Sunday, Dec. 22 and 23 at 1 and 4 p.m.
Wednesday – Friday, Dec. 26-28 at 1 p.m.
Saturday and Sunday, Dec. 29 and 30 at 1 and 4 p.m.