Ravinia 2026 Issue 5

the 1995 recording), and he included suggested staging directions in the score. But as long as groups properly secure the rights to the music, they can present the works any way they see fit. Some orchestras even perform them as straight concert works. “But I think that is wrong,” he said. “When I wrote the music, I never intended that.” KAPLAN, a multifaceted cellist, music director, and arranger, was looking for something different to present during a pair of family concerts in 2022 at the Skokie Theatre, and he thought of the Dr. Seuss operas. He serves as artistic director of the JAM Orchestra, and he quickly brought the eight-year-old group on board. It is a kind of con- temporary pops orchestra, though it pointedly avoids the word “pops,” which can have a kind of outdated, uncool connotation. “We wanted to not just be another classical orchestra,” Kaplan said. “We certainly do that, but we wanted to branch out and do a lot of different styles of music and not try to be defined by one thing.” The Chicago-based orchestra’s core members are longtime friends and col- leagues, some of whom met as far back as high school. They were inspired by the John Wilson Orchestra in London, which performs MGM movie musicals and Broadway shows by Rodgers and Hammerstein with their original, ex- pansive orchestrations. That group was a regular at the BBC Proms—the UK’s famed summer music festival—from 2009 through 2019. The Skokie performances were well attended, and the Dr. Seuss operas got the thumbs-up from both the kids and their parents. Given that initial success, Kaplan and Holly Weis, who served as the producer for the presentation, wanted to find another opportunity to perform the works with a more sophisti- cated production and bigger audience. That opportunity came shortly after Weis teamed in 2024 with two other women with extensive backgrounds in the arts and entertainment world to form the Northbrook-based Lark Cre- ative Group, which focuses on classical and cross-genre productions, partic- ularly those for young audiences. The new team reached out to Ravinia with several ideas for possible family shows, and the festival’s leaders took a liking an offering based around Kapilow’s Dr. Seuss operas. The Lark Group is serving as the pro- ducer for the resulting show, which has meant bringing on director Scott Wein- stein, who developed the three-year national tour of Million Dollar Quartet Christmas , and coordinating theatrical elements like the show’s props and cos- tumes. “While I’m focusing on the music and putting the operas together, they’re doing everything else,” Kaplan said. In shaping the production, Langas said, the Lark team wanted to make sure it was “palatable, fun, and engaging” for children and touched everyone in the 850-seat Martin Theatre. “We better make sure that every person leaves feeling that they got the same experi- ence as someone who might have been right up front. It’s a challenge in that big of a house,” she said. To help in that regard, Weinstein and the Lark Group conceived the idea of a six-member non-verbal ensemble that essentially acts out the stories as the operas are be- ing performed, often taking their antics out into the house. “So, the production will have a great deal of theatricality,” Weis said. Bianca Rose, another of Lark’s co-founders, said they worked during the whole process to make sure they are never talking down to children and that that their young attendees are getting the same “high-quality, artistic experi- ence” as adults would expect. “We don’t always give kids enough credit about what they are capable of taking in and processing,” she said, “so it is important to treat them in a way that doesn’t dumb the material down in any way.” In all, the show will run about an hour with the two operas bridged by a section in which the children in the audience are introduced to the instru- ments of the orchestra in what Weis called a “cute, Seussian” way. There will also be pre-show festivities outside on the Ravinia campus as attendees enter the theater. With the captivating music and all the fun, theatrical add-ons, Ka- plan believes Dr. Seuss Goes to the Opera is the perfect debut concert experience for any child. Might the Lark Group’s Dr. Seuss production have a future beyond Ravin- ia, perhaps on tour? “We have definitely thought about that,” Weis said, “but our eyes are honestly on the current pro- duction and making sure it is as great as possible.” Kyle MacMillan served as classical music critic for the Denver Post from 2000 through 2011. He currently freelances in Chicago, writing for such publications as the Chicago Sun-Times , Early Music America , Opera News , and Classical Voice of North America . Aaron Kaplan and artists from the JAMOrchestra will introduce young families to operatic music theater through Dr. Seuss’s fanciful Green Eggs and Ham and Gertrude McFuzz stories on August 29, backing an imaginitive whole-theater production by the Lark Creative Group. RAVINIAMAGAZINE • AUGUST 24 – SEPTEMBER 6 , 2026 20