R. Eugene Jackson's dramatization of Kenneth Grahame's classic tale, The Wind in the Willows, will enchant your audiences and delight your actors. This skillful retelling of the beloved favorite retains all of the charm and delicacy of the Grahame novel, but now you can relive the adventure in visual, dramatic detail as Toad, Badger, the weasels, and all of the others spring to life on your stage.

The story begins with the rich and lazy but laughably lovable Toad and his latest obsession: sports cars, and the faster the better. He buys car after car, but unfortunately he is as reckless as he is wealthy, and his carelessness eventually lands his cars in the scrap heap and Toad in a small-time jail with a comically caricatured small-town sheriff and his dim-witted deputy. The plot thickens when Toad breaks out of jail to save his family home which was taken over by a band of weasel-thugs from the Wild Wood while Toad was sitting in jail. With the help of Badger, Water Rat, and Mole, Toad dresses in drag and regains Toad Hall, delivers the band of weasels to the sheriff, and earns his freedom.

Note: Even though the original book was written in 1908, this play takes place in the present. Interestingly, Grahame mixed animals and people together in his story as if they were all human. Thus, the Sports Car Driver, the Sheriff, Jimmy Ray, Sarie, and the posse members are all humans, while the other characters are animals.

This delightful tale has a cast of 13 or more players, depending on the size of the weasel band and the sheriff's posse. Our video of this play is enough to influence production of the script.

Two acts; Set, in and around the Wild Wood; Time, the present.

Jackson's adaptations: Babes in Toyland, Beauty and the Beast, The Hunting of the Snark, Rumpelstiltskin Is My Name, The Secret Garden, Pinocchio, The Wizard of Oz, You're a Grand Old Flag

See also: Adaptations of the Classics