A Perfect Match: John Glore, Jessica Kubzansky and "The Stinky Cheese Man"

Playwright John Glore and director Jessica Kubzansky are the perfect pair to helm a production of The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales. Many of SCR’s younger audiences might know Glore, who is also the theatre’s associate artistic director, for his other Theatre for Young Audiences adaptations, including Madeline L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time (2010) and Laura Amy Schlitz’s The Night Fairy (2013). Kubzansky, co-artistic director of Pasadena’s Theatre @ Boston Court, has directed productions of both new and classic plays across the country—and SCR audiences may remember her 2008 TYA production of Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing. Glore and Kubzansky took some time out of their busy rehearsal schedule to answer a few questions about why they love The Stinky Cheese Man and how they’re bringing it to life.

John Glore

Playwright John Glore on The Stinky Cheese Man

Why did you want to adapt The Stinky Cheese Man for the stage? 

When I was a kid (back in the Stone Age, when there were only four TV channels) I always loved the fractured fairy tales that were part of the “Rocky and Bullwinkle” cartoon show. So when my young niece (who is now a grown woman with a child of her own) introduced me to The Stinky Cheese Man book, I thought it was hilarious and would make a fun, crazy play.

The illustrations and text in Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith’s book come together to create a total experience for the reader. How did you adapt it for the stage?  

One of the things that’s so clever about the book is the way it makes fun of how books work. For instance, the title page just says “TITLE PAGE” in great big letters, and then in parentheses, “(for The Stinky Cheese Man & Other Fairly Stupid Tales).” And in his introduction Jack, the narrator, tells you to quit reading and turn the page because “if you read this last sentence it won’t tell you anything,” which of course you find out is true as soon as you finish reading the sentence. So I decided if I was going to turn this book into a play, then it should be a play that makes fun of being a play. So I wrote an opening number called “Opening Number” and a love song called “Love Song” in which almost all the words are “love.” Also, in the book, Jack isn’t a very good storyteller and he doesn’t do a very good job of laying out his book, so in the play I turned Jack into a kind of stage manager-narrator who keeps getting confounded by the other actors and characters in the play, until his play turns into a complete disaster zone.

SCR first produced this adaptation in 2005. Why revive it now? Has the play changed?

Everyone who saw it as a kid in 2005 is now really old—I mean they’re, like, teenagers.  And there’s a whole new bunch of kids who didn’t see it when we first did it, because they were a bunch of babies back then. So it seemed like a good idea to bring it back. And yes, the script has changed in small ways, and the production will be very different because it’s being put together by a new director and new designers and most of the actors are different. Everyone who’s working on the show is so good that I think it will be even better than it was the first time. 

If you could add one more fairly stupid tale to The Stinky Cheese Man, what would it be?
It would either be “Hansel and Some Girl” (in which Hansel and some girl get lost in the woods, and happen upon a house made out of straw, so just for the heck of it they huff and puff and blow the house down and then the witch who lives there with three pigs turns Hansel and some girl into nutcrackers) or “Beauty and the Bees” (in which a girl named Belle decides to become a beekeeper only little does she know that her hive is full of killer bees who go crazy when they see the color yellow).  Or maybe “Snow White and the Seven Seas,” which would involve pirates.

I might have to write a whole new play to fit all these stupid tales into it.

Jessica Kubzansky

Director Jessica Kubzansky on The Stinky Cheese Man

Why did you want to direct The Stinky Cheese Man?
It’s such delicious good fun. I love stories that subvert or riff on other stories. I also love The Stinky Cheese Man’s torqued, lost-in-the-fun-house sense of playfulness. At the center, there is this storyteller who is desperately trying to tell a good story and keeps failing—but keeps trying again. And I feel like that, in some ways, is the story of my life as a director. I am a storyteller constantly trying to tell a great story, and it’s always about juggling the challenges, chaos, and other things that happen in the theatre in the attempt to tell a story.

What are some of the elements from the book that you’re excited to see come alive on stage?
The illustrations in the book are so deliciously weird, and trying to bring them to the stage is such an exciting challenge for the theatrical imagination. I love all the opportunities to lift things out of naturalism and turn them into something beautiful, weird and wondrous—that’s an exciting directorial challenge. 

How does directing a play for young audiences differ from directing a play for adults?
I’m not sure it’s all that different. I think the process is the same for me, mostly because I do a lot of plays that I call “style plays,” which involve size plus truth. They have “size,” meaning we have lifted the performance out of naturalism, but they must still retain “truth,” meaning the performance has to be genuine.

If there’s any difference between working on a play for a young audience and working on a play for an adult audience, it’s that a young audience is not polite or restrained—they’re entirely truthful. If you look in at an audience made up of children, you will instantly know if you have their attention. It’s the greatest compliment when you do, and it teaches you important things when you don’t.

What do you enjoy most about directing for young audiences?

I love directing plays for young audiences because I think we have to educate the next generation of theatergoers that the theatre is a crucial and important art form. I feel like it’s my job to shape the next generation of people who think that this is a viable thing to do with their time.

What do you do during the rehearsal process to help the actors discover and distinguish their many characters?

I’ll usually do a physical exercise, in which I ask actors to walk across the stage as themselves. Then I ask them to change one element of their walk—like an arm, a leg, a hand position, a neck position. We also look at what center the character leads from (there’s something called Laban Movement Analysis, which is about movement paradigms—light, heavy, legato, staccato, etc.). Then we’ll also ask ourselves about the character’s voice, too.

I have to say that most of the time the actors bring in many ideas, so I only have to help them find inspiration when they’re lost. And we have such rich, inventive actors in The Stinky Cheese Man that it’s almost never the case.

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A Real "Stinker" of a Play

About the Authors: Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith

Lane Smith and Jon Scieszka

Jon Scieszka (pronounced She-ska; it rhymes with Fresca) and Lane Smith first collaborated together on The True Story of the Three Little Pigs. Their attempt to get the book published wasn’t a walk in the park, however; publisher after publisher rejected the manuscript, saying it was “too dark” or “too sophisticated.” Finally an editor at Viking Books responded to Scieszka’s cheeky humor and Lane’s quirky illustrations and published it in 1989.

In 1992, Viking Books published Scieszka and Lane’s second book, The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales, which critics praised not only for its whimsy but also for its insightful send up of the strict morality found in fairy tales. Many now consider the book to be a masterpiece of postmodern children’s fiction. The Stinky Cheese Man has won many awards, including a Caldecott Honor and The New York Times Best Illustrated Book Award. In 2002, a special tenth anniversary edition was released with an additional story added (“The Boy Who Cried Cow Patty”).

Altogether, Scieszka and Smith have collaborated on eight picture books and eight Time Warp Trio books. Lane's wife, Molly Leach, has designed all of their picture books.

Everyone knows fairy tales. They’re the stories full of wonder and enchantment that usually have a happy ending: the good characters live happily ever after, and the bad characters get what they deserve (hence the phrase “a fairy tale ending”). But The Stinky Cheese Man doesn’t have any of those. Instead, it’s full of fairly stupid tales.

Playwright John Glore based the stage production on the 1992 award-winning book of the same name by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith. The play stars Jack (of beanstalk fame) as the trusty narrator. But, despite his resolve, he just can’t get all the fairy tale characters on the same page. In fact, before he can even tell the first story, a little red hen interrupts him: she’s on a mission to find someone to help her bake some bread. The other chicken, Chicken Licken, isn’t sure when she’s supposed to enter the stage either, but she has bigger things to worry about—she’s sure the sky is falling.

When Jack does manage to get things on track, the tales he tells are completely ridiculous. Stories like “The Princess and the Bowling Ball,” “The Other Frog Prince” and “The Tortoise and the Hair” come to life on stage and poke fun at the age-old fairy tales on which they’re based.

Take “Cinderumpelstiltskin,” for example. In it, a beautiful maiden, forced to wear rags and clean her wicked stepsisters’ home, wants nothing more than to go to the ball in a fancy dress and glass slippers so she can meet a prince. But it’s not a fairy godmother who visits her. Instead, it’s a wee man with a mysterious name and the ability to spin straw into gold. It’s not an ideal situation for either of them.

Then there’s “The Stinky Cheese Man,” the titular tale. The little man in this story (made out of only cheese, a couple of olives for eyes and a piece of bacon for a mouth) is just as sassy as the gingerbread man from the known fairy tale—except that no one wants to eat him.

As Jack navigates these warped stories, he suddenly finds himself face to face with his biggest problem yet—his own story. After all, there’s a giant roaming around looking for revenge. And in The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales all bets are off…and anything can happen.

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Bringing Stinky to the Stage

The Stinky Cheese Man set rendering by designer Susan Gratch.

Playwright and SCR’s Associate Artistic Director John Glore has been a fan of The Stinky Cheese Man ever since his young niece introduced him to it years ago. He first adapted the book for the stage in 2005, and it premiered in SCR’s Theatre for Young Audiences season that year. While adapting the book, Glore was not only interested in the way The Stinky Cheese Man deconstructs and parodies famous children’s stories—but also how it plays with the reader’s experience.

Cow costume rendering by designer Ann Closs-Farley.

“One of the things that’s so clever about the book is the way it makes fun of how books work,” says Glore. “For instance, the title page just says ‘TITLE PAGE’ in great big letters, and then in parentheses, ‘(for The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales).’ So I decided if I was going to turn this book into a play, then it should be a play that makes fun of being a play.”

When SCR decided to revive The Stinky Cheese Man during its 50th season, Glore immediately turned to director Jessica Kubzansky, who directed SCR’s TYA production of Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing in 2008, to helm the project. Kubzansky’s collaborative and imaginative directing style makes her the perfect fit for the piece, not to mention her love of what she calls the play’s “torqued, lost-in-the-funhouse sense of playfulness.”

Cinderella Costume rendering by Ann Closs-Farley

Kubzansky assembled a first-rate ensemble of seven actors to play The Stinky Cheese Man’s approximately 30 characters: Larry Bates, who appeared in the original 2005 production of The Stinky Cheese Man, as well as Death of a Salesman earlier this season; Brad Culver, who makes his SCR debut; Tracey A. Leigh, SCR’s Death of a Salesman; Matt McGrath, SCR’s Putting it Together and Broadway’s Cabaret; Nicholas Mongiardo-Cooper, who appeared in John Glore’s adaptation of The Night Fairy last season; Amanda Pajer, who voices two popular shows at the Griffith Observatory; and Erika Schindele, SCR’s A Christmas Carol and Jane of the Jungle. Learn more about the cast of The Stinky Cheese Man.

The talented design team includes Susan Gratch (sets), Ann Closs-Farley (costumes), Jaymi Smith and Jeremy Pivnick (lights) and Vincent Olivieri (sound design/composer). Tim Horrigan is The Stinky Cheese Man’s musical director (the play is full of surprising songs that equal the stories in their silliness). These designers have an extra special challenge on their hands because The Stinky Cheese Man is much beloved for its quirky look. But the crafty team is certainly up to the challenge, and their work not only captures the book’s essence but builds upon it in clever ways.

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The Story of the Sassy (Stinky) Cheese Man, Other Fairly Stupid Tales

Everyone knows fairy tales. They’re the stories full of wonder, magic and enchantment that usually have a happy ending: the good guys live happily ever after, and the bad guys get what they deserve (hence the phrase “a fairy tale ending”). But The Stinky Cheese Man doesn’t have any of those. Instead, it’s full of fairly stupid tales.

Based on the 1992 award-winning book of the same name, the play stars Jack (of beanstalk fame) as the trusty narrator. But despite his resolve, he just can’t get all the characters on the same page. In fact, before he can even tell the first story, a little red hen interrupts him on a mission to find a friend to help her bake some bread. Another chicken, Chicken Licken, isn’t quite sure when she’s supposed to enter either. When Jack does manage to get things on track, the tales he tells are pretty ridiculous. Stories like “The Princess and the Bowling Ball,” “Little Red Running Shorts” and “The Tortoise and the Hair” come to life on stage and poke fun at the age-old fairy tales on which they’re based.

In “Cinderumpelstiltskin,” for example, a beautiful maiden, forced to wear rags and clean her wicked stepsisters’ house, wants nothing more than a fancy dress and glass slippers so she can go to the ball and meet a prince. But it’s not a fairy godmother who visits her—instead it’s a little man with a mysterious name and the ability to spin straw into gold. It’s not an ideal situation for either of them.

Of course there’s also “The Stinky Cheese Man,” the story from which the play gets its title. This little man (made out of only cheese, a couple of olives for eyes and a piece of bacon for a mouth) is just as sassy as the gingerbread man from the known fairy tale—except that no one really wants to eat him.

As Jack navigates these silly stories, he suddenly finds himself face to face with his biggest problem yet—his own story. After all, there’s a giant roaming around who wants nothing more than to get his revenge on the young lad. And in The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales all bets are off…and anything can happen.

Learn more and buy tickets