Lincoln Peirce’s comic Big Nate is being adapted to a stage production.
Jason Loewith, the Big Nate playright in the Huffington Post:
Our adaptation celebrates Nate’s artistic expression, while letting the audience know he’s a kid like them: struggling to do well while the elements at P.S. 38 rage against him. And we try to find the theatrical equivalents of cartoon conventions: onomatopoetic dialogue (a whole teachers’ lounge scene filled with “blah blah blah,” “yak yak yak” and the occasional “ooga booga”); projected cartoon bubbles and drawings halt the action, mimicking the frame-by-frame movement of a comic strip; musical riffs become the equivalent of those frozen moments of surprise, shock and joy that a great drawing can nail in an instant.
Michael Canva talks with Lincoln about the play.
“I think Nate is a fairly theatrical kid,” Bobbitt tells Comic Riffs. "His thought bubbles are like direct addresses to the audience. He’s got an arch-nemesis and a love interest. Many dramas and operas have been written on this subject.