Prolific author Robert Munsch’s stories endure because they blend silliness with sincerity. In them, the zany velocity of childhood imagination ricochets off bedrock truths like family love, resilience, and the value of our differences.
With the octogenarian Munsch facing well‑known health challenges, the durability of these tales feels both poignant and remarkable. Despite his decline, the tales he has gifted us keep doing their gentle, noisy work: inviting children to laugh, imagine, and feel big feelings without apology. And nowhere does this happen more gently, noisily—and lovingly—than at Young People’s Theatre.
Love You Forever and More Munsch, now on the Ada Slaight Stage, revives a beloved, award-winning YPT staple in a nimble new package. We open in the bedroom of Munsch’s Mortimer, the sleepless imp who simply refuses to go to bed, before the show kaleidoscopes through five Munsch classics: Mortimer; The Paper Bag Princess; Murmel, Murmel, Murmel; Zoom!; and the heart-melting Love You Forever. It then returns us to Mortimer and closes his story (spoiler: he goes to sleep). All told, this brisk and delightful 45‑ish minute romp lands with both giggles and grace.
Mortimer’s teetering bunk-style bed dominates the center of Robin Fisher’s clever set. It’s a climbing challenge for Mortimer (David Andrew Reid), the center of a racetrack for chase scenes, and a peek‑a‑boo playground with an under‑bed “cave” that doubles as the dragon’s lair in The Paper Bag Princess. A multipiece storage bin at left holds countless toys Mortimer alternately wants — or doesn’t want — to play with; as needed, it becomes a stairway to the top of the bed. Stage right, a doorway provides access for real people like Mortimer’s family. Stage left is a closet serving as a portal for imaginary characters. Jareth Li’s lighting shifts, Olivia Wheeler’s sonics, and countless quick reconfigurations spin us from bedtime to bravado, and from quiet to caper.
In doomed attempts to put Mortimer to bed, his mother (a delightfully frazzled, yet steadfast and loving Amy Lee) races in and out, while Mortimer’s mischief‑loving, oversized glasses-wearing sister (an impish Megan Murphy) pops in to wind him up. This framing device works because Stephen Colella and Sue Miner’s smart adaptation, realized by Colella and Karen Gilodo’s brisk direction, lets the other four Munsch tales bloom as Mortimer’s imagined adventures, acted‑out detours, or drowsy dreams spawned by his resistance to sleep. Each lands with fun, crisp detail: the resourceful princess (also Murphy) who enters from the closet and then outsmarts a puffed-up red dragon; the found baby who re-routes an ordinary day; the wheelchair and wheelchair rider (also Lee) who rockets past limits; and, finally, the lullaby of love that grows up and circles back, with Lee and Murphy in a sweet intergenerational dance.
David Andrew Reid as Mortimer is wonderfully physical and winning: his fantastically expressive face and limber, cheerful falls and rebounds mix clownish bravado with the unmistakable logic of kid‑energy. I lost count of the number of times he leaped onto the fire pole shortcut from the top of the bed to the floor (something I suspect every kid with a bunk bed will ask their parents to install, as they exit the theatre). Jung A Im’s costuming, stylistically true to the different books’ illustrative styles, is a minor miracle, featuring dozens of rapid‑fire changes executed with precision that never breaks the spell.
To be perfectly candid, I watched the audience —especially the children — almost as much as the wonderful show. Two camps emerged: silent and rapt; and noisy but equally rapt — talking back, and musing loudly about what might, could, or should happen next. What I didn’t see was inattention or disinterest. That matters. Munsch’s recognizable, diverse characters—anchored in emotional truths about enduring family love and the power of imagination and aspiration; and embodied in this kinetic, visually rich production—still resonate. The post‑show Q&A proved these even more forcefully: hands shot up everywhere. Children were positively vibrating with thoughts and questions.
Note‑perfect and joyfully theatrical, Love You Forever and More Munsch is a perfect gateway for young children to the magic of performance and the power of possibility. In a world that rushes children into adulthood, it reminds us that play—the process—is “forever and more” the point.
Love You Forever and More Munsch runs through March 21, 2026. Tickets are available at youngpeoplestheatre.org.
Scott Sneddon, Sesaya Arts Magazine 2026
