PHOTO/CHILDREN'S THEATRE OF CHARLOTTE

Devin Clark is the title character in the coming of age drama “Bud, Not Buddy” at the Children’s Theatre of Charlotte March 24-April 8. The play is based on Christopher Paul Curtis’ award-winning book.

Loneliness is an inevitable part of life.

Children’s Theatre of Charlotte teaches audiences how to cope with complicated circumstances through the story of “Bud, Not Buddy” March 24-April 8.   

“We landed on a child who is in search of completion in terms of family,” director Jerrell Henderson said. “He’s been separated from this idea or feeling of family that he was really kind of fully immersed in with his mom, and then she passes away, and he’s with the orphanage. He’s separated from that, but he’s always tried to get back to that thing.

“Part of it is because he knows that there is someone out there that he can be connected to. It’s all about fighting loneliness and fighting isolation—understanding that there is something greater out there for you. That greater thing for him is family. He’s not going to sit around and wait for it. He’s going to go out there and get it.”
Based on Christopher Paul Curtis’s Newbery Medal-winning and Coretta Scott King Award-winning novel and adapted by Reginald Andre Jackson, the show takes the audience through the life of 10-year old Bud Caldwell.

As an orphan growing up in Great Depression Michigan, Caldwell has one goal in mind—a family of his own.

“He’s dealing with a lot of pretty hard circumstances,” Henderson said.  “It’s the Great Depression. He’s this little African American kid on his own in the 1930s. There are a lot of dangers out there, but in the story, there are also lots of people who are put in his place who comfort him, who take care of him, who feed him, who are worried about him. One of the things that the story shows is that you are going to go through some of the more negative aspects of life, but there are people who want you to do well and care for you even though you are not necessarily related to them. You can hold onto those folks.”

The adaptation illustrates the power of imagination.

“Since he spends so much time alone, he is sustained a lot by his imagination,” Henderson said. “It’s wild, vast, explosive and fun. Creating this idea, and then going in search of it—eventually the idea begins to take shape. It begins to become this actual thing. It can also show that imagination can get you through a lot—holding onto it and kind of never letting it go. That way his soul feeds itself when there’s not a whole lot to do it for him.”

At its core, “Bud, Not Buddy” encourages people not to give up on dreams.

“We play around with how imagination can be represented on stage,” Henderson said. “Some of the images and the characters that the audience meets will demonstrate that for them. Seeing the many ways that his imagination manifests itself, and then seeing the journey that the imagination actually gets him to a great place, I think that’s one of the ways that it will show audience members ‘don’t give up on that thing yet.’”

On the Net:
www.ctcharlotte.org

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