‘Frog and Toad’ hopping onto outdoor stage in Cedar Rapids

CEDAR RAPIDS — The usual croaking and chirping will have some competition when “A Year with Frog and Toad” hops onstage next to Brucemore’s Duck Pond from Sept. 3 to 12.

The musical, nominated for three Tony Awards in 2003, brings to life Arnold Lobel’s beloved children’s stories, celebrating a year in the life of two best friends who stick together through thick and thin. And that’s a visual cue, too, according to Aaron Pozdol who plays Toad, opposite Kehry Anson Lane who plays Frog.

Turning himself into an anthropomorphic amphibian “starts with the physicality,” said Pozdol, 40, of Cedar Rapids.

“You have to think about where your weight is centered in your body, and try to focus on the legs and how springy they might be. And for Toad, particularly this Toad, the next step is to emphasize the Laurel and Hardy of it. I’m the shorter, wider one, and Kehry’s taller and more slim, so the visual helps with that, because it helps you to lock in and focus on some of the defining traits of Toad.

“Toad is anxious. He's concerned about the world around him. He would rather not participate, and all these things are in direct opposition to the way Frog thinks of the world, so those opposites attract. They're puzzle pieces that match.

“Frog doesn’t think about his own safety — how to be part of the world necessarily,” Pozdol said. “He's a little bit more up in the air. That's practical, perhaps. And Toad is not so.

“This toad is anthropomorphized, so you get to still be a person while playing with the idea of being a person if they were an animal.”

Because of the way the show has been written, where the animals have lots of human characteristics, getting into character doesn’t rely on slipping into a frog’s skin, Lane added.

“I think the suggestion of Frog is probably a more appropriate way to put it,” said Lane, 44, of Iowa City. “I'm playing with the physicality to kind of get frog-ish hits.

“But the best guidance on that actually comes from one of Toad’s lines where he says, ‘Frog is kindly in his nature and magnanimous whenever playing host.’ And in script analysis, you look at what you say about yourself, what others say about you, and what's true and what's not,” Lane said.

“So the North Star for Frog is to just be kindly and magnanimous and maybe add a little bit of walking in a certain way that helps give the impression of Frog without playing a frog.”

Three other actors play a woodland menagerie. Alex Granfield portrays Bird, Snail, Lizard, Father Frog and Mole; Beth Nelsen morphs into Bird, Mouse, Squirrel, Young Frog and Mole; and Anne Gensicke Ohrt slips into Bird, Turtle, Squirrel, Mother Frog and Mole mode.

All help tell the stories and the lessons learned as they move through all the seasons and encounter misunderstandings that need to be resolved. The words, along with the imagery of the scenery by Joe Link and costumes by Bre Kenney, will create a nostalgic feel for people of all ages familiar with Lobel’s “Frog and Toad” series.

“A lot of scenes come directly out of the book, so if you grew up reading the books or read the books to your children, you will immediately recognize some of the themes, some of the words, so it feels like you’re hearing a children’s story out loud, in the way that they talk — ‘Good afternoon Frog,’ ‘Good afternoon Toad,’ ‘How are you today?’ It’s very much written in the style of the books,” said director Lisa Kelly of Cedar Rapids.

“We’ve tried to put the costumes and the sets in the style of the books, so it should feel like a happy memory. That’s the look we’re going for — the nostalgia and memory, but also putting our own spin on it, because we have our own actors, and we’ve brought it into the present day a little bit (with) some fun things for adults and children.”

That’s what Podzol and Lane are most looking forward to — seeing and hearing the reactions of the kids in the audience. Both actors have a young son and daughter in real life, who are helping them learn lines or singing along to the soundtrack on car rides.

The music has a big band feel, even with just two keyboards and a drummer for this production, said music director Janelle Lauer of Cedar Rapids. And during a recent rehearsal, when Lane and Podzol grabbed a top hat and cane for a soft-shoe number, they instantly evoked an image of Mr. Frog from the Looney Tunes cartoons.

Tossing dance on top of singing isn’t as easy as Broadway actors make it seem, Podzol noted. “I should have been training for this like it was RAGBRAI.”

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