Skyward Productions mounts a tight, tuneful musical fable about finding light in dark times.

During Saturday afternoon’s performance of The Pumpkin Kid at the Historic Elitch Theatre, as the Candle Lady and Candle Man reminisced about their wedding during the lilting “Wedding Day Song,” a little girl in the audience wearing a pumpkin dress stood up and began dancing along.

That moment felt like a natural extension of the way the 38-minute musical draws young audiences into its world. From the moment families enter through the stage door into a makeshift pumpkin patch, The Pumpkin Kid makes the story feel like something to participate in rather than simply watch.

Skyward Productions’ The Pumpkin Kid is quick, hummable and, most importantly, light. Jeff LaGreca and Suzanne Slade’s musical fable makes its intentions clear early: There are already enough scary stories in the world, so this one will be about finding joy instead.

A scene from The Pumpkin Kid at the Historic Elitch Theatre in Denver, Colo. | Photo: Suzanne Slade

Sponsored

LaGreca, who wrote and directs the show, establishes that playful tone before the story even begins. Rather than entering through the Historic Elitch Theatre’s front doors, audiences come through the stage door into a backstage area transformed into a pumpkin patch, complete with corn, lanterns, string lights and a pumpkin-carving station. Woodcarver and blacksmith workshops flank the intimate playing area, while the live band sits nearby.

This creates the feeling of wandering into a whimsical fall festival rather than taking a seat for a conventional musical.

A town in need of change

Bartolo (Stephen Bertless) serves as the storyteller, employing his magical narrator powers to transform the ensemble into the inhabitants of an exceptionally grumpy little town. “Miserable Time of Year” gleefully establishes their collective curmudgeonliness before Jane Curry’s cheerful Pumpkin Kid arrives with a wagon of misshapen pumpkins and a puppet cat companion.

Using discarded tools loaned to her by the townspeople, she carves pumpkins that reveal something each person has lost. The Candle Lady (Karey Montoya-James) and Candle Man (Bryan Plummer) remember the happiness of their wedding. David Hintz’s Blacksmith recalls a beloved horse during the goofy Western-inspired “Yipee Yay.” Annie Dwyer’s Woodcarver reconnects with her love of music through “Paganini’s Violin.”

David Hintz and Jane Curry in The Pumpkin Kid. | Photo: Suzanne Slade

The transformations are hardly surprising. The Pumpkin Kid tells us from the beginning that this will be a story about light because there are already enough stories about darkness. LaGreca never seriously threatens that promise.

The biggest tonal jolt comes from Rob Utesch’s Tailor, whose bitterness stems from an unexpectedly grim backstory involving the murder of his family by traveling men while he survived by hiding. That is heavy material for such a buoyant fable, although Utesch sells the character’s grief strongly enough that his eventual transformation carries extra weight.

Finding the light

What keeps the simple story engaging is how playfully the production tells it. Curry spends much of the show accompanied by an expressive cat puppet, while the Blacksmith’s story introduces an especially delightful horse puppet that eventually leads into a soft-shoe number and percussion break.

Those little surprises give Nick Sugar’s choreography and LaGreca’s staging a handmade theatricality that fits the material. The same is true when the carved pumpkins finally illuminate from within. Johnny Bartlett’s lighting and Kit Matthews’ projections make those reveals feel magical with the aid of animated design that tastefully flesh out the world.

The Pumpkin Kid cast onstage at the Historic Elitch Theatre in Denver, Colo. | Photo: Suzanne Slade

By the closing “How the Light Gets In,” the lesson has been spelled out several times over. Subtlety is not really the goal. Joy is.

There are plenty of frightening stories available around Halloween. The Pumpkin Kid offers families something gentler: a story about people who feel beyond repair discovering that there might still be some light inside them.

And when a child is moved to get up and dance along, it is difficult to argue with the results.