Political animals: Children’s Theatre’s ‘Duck for President!’

Political animal is a term that goes all the way back to Aristotle, but here in 2016, another kind of political animal is about to get its moment in the spotlight: a duck.

Lexington Children’s Theatre’s latest production, Duck for President!, is a barnyard musical comedy that introduces the political process to young children.

Adapted by James E. Grote, with music by George Howe, from the book by Doreen Cronin, illustrated by Betsy Lewin, the tale features the same animals from the popular book Click, Clack, Moo, plus Farmer Brown. He sets the whole political process in motion when he decides it’s high time his farm animals start helping with chores around the farm rather than just lying around all day.

Duck is so unhappy with his new, hard-working lifestyle that he hatches a plan to get free of Farmer Brown’s authority by electing new leadership on the farm. If he were in charge, they’d have plenty of time to play and have fun. But he soon learns that with power comes responsibility, as he is elected not just the new farmer but then governor and president.

“Duck goes on this journey of being perfectly content in his life on the farm, and then he gets more responsibility and he doesn’t like it. It’s not fun,” says director Sara Vazquez, a former LCT intern who has directed, stage-managed and performed at LCT in the past.

“He learns the old adage of ‘the grass is always greener,’” Vazquez says. “Expectations do not always match reality.”

Vazquez says the show offers a child-friendly introduction to the political process, with an embedded layer of humorous references for adults.

“I wanted to make sure we told a clear story about how the election process worked and the basic elements that went into that,” Vazquez says.

“There’s a reason we chose this for the season for this year. It’s introducing that process to the primary, young audiences so they can have some context for what’s happening in the world,” Vazquez says. Grownups can expect some fun, too, with funny historical references peppered throughout the show.

Abraham Lincoln, Richard Nixon and George W. Bush are a few past presidents who are joked about in the show.

“It’s really funny because there’s two different laugh tracks,” Vasquez says. “The kids are all laughing at one set of things, and then when the kids aren’t laughing, the teachers or parents are laughing.”

As Vazquez said, the show was picked to present in the midst of the current presidential election, widely regarded as one of the most turbulent and bizarre in recent memory, and one that commentators occasionally say might be inappropriate for children. Past presidents were fair game for humor, but Vazquez decided not to poke fun at the current election cycle.

“There are a lot of campaign signs in the show, and it was very tempting to do some things like ‘Make the barn great again’ and ‘Feel the quack’,” she says. “But I wanted it to stay true to their stories and let the audience draw their own conclusions.”

This story was originally published April 7, 2016 at 2:32 PM with the headline "Political animals: Children’s Theatre’s ‘Duck for President!’."