Reflections on Winnie-the-Pooh: Homeward Bounce!

Dateline: October 13, 2025

Winnie-the-Pooh: Homeward Bounce! closed yesterday. It was the culmination of a project that actually began in the Spring of 2022 when we first decided to adapt some of A.A. Milne’s stories for the stage. Our previous show, Winnie-the-Pooh: A Dream of Honey, was performed in April of 2024.  The cast and production team agreed that we would love to create a sequel. Initially, I was aiming for the spring of 2026, but decided to go ahead and start writing in the fall of 2024. I worked on the script for several months, and we had a table read of the first complete draft at the end of March this year. We cast the role of Tigger in June and began rehearsals in August. 

Twenty-two rehearsals and eight performances, plus one very special Meet & Greet event, later–and it’s over. 

All in all, thinking about these two scripts has consumed most of my creative energy for three and a half years.  I am so grateful for the opportunity to create not one but two beautiful shows with such an amazingly inventive cast, plus the help of a tireless, enthusiastic, stalwart team of other creative people, including costumer, composer, set builder, and scenic artist. Everyone worked together to tell these stories well, with lots of humor, plenty of sweetness, and a few tough truths about family dynamics. 

The results, from my perspective, were magical. Seeing the faces of children when Winnie-the-Pooh (through the wonders of lighting and projections and imagination) floated via balloon up into the honey tree, or when Tigger and Roo bounced through Rabbit’s garden, was a delight. So many children received their very first live theatre experience at one of these two plays, and that is very gratifying.

We added an original song about growing up (called “Hourglass”), which the cast sang after the curtain call. As a result, many moms left the theater weeping, processing the truth that children grow up, but our love remains. Moms of tiny little ones, and mothers of adult children, shared that emotional connection wrought by a truthful story. 

Theater engages the heart and mind on a different level than either books or film. When I read a novel I am aware of having to work to create images in my mind (though the skill of the writer will help or hinder that work). I may or may not be able to “hear” the characters’ voices.  When I watch a movie, I have the opposite problem: every bit of work is done for me in high-definition. Specific actors fill ultra-real locations where (too often) nothing is left to the imagination.  But theater stands at a beautiful mid-point, where the words are central, but voices, costumes and sets help us to see and hear, while allowing us quite a bit of room to fill in the gaps… Pooh and Piglet are on a bridge, but I have to believe in the “water”. Tigger and Roo “bounce up into a tree”, but I feel Tigger’s fear of heights in my mind. I only see the spiky thistles and the sticky honey in my imagination. That is the wonder of live theater. There’s nothing else quite like it. 

One audience member came with low expectations–he’s a tough combat veteran, a realist. But he was captivated, as many other adults were, by the whimsy, high comedy, and poignancy of the story. This gentleman raved about: “the playful enjoyment I felt just being swept along in this safe, excellent, creative space tonight…This work glows like magic fireflies in a bottle and I just can not say in my experience how rare and fragile that is in the world.”

So taken with the show was he, that he bought twenty more tickets. Yes, 20. Ten for each of the final two performances. And in doing so, he blessed a number of people who grabbed the opportunity to experience the magic. One of these dear folks was a woman who had just taken in two foster children. The boy and girl were reluctant at first to do anything that didn’t involve screens. They’d never been to a play before. But now they are talking about the stories, about their favorite characters, and asking when the next play will be. Perhaps a healing of spirit is taking place in these two young lives, all because of the beauty and wonder of live theater. 

These stories are precious to me because most of the time we don’t ever know exactly how one of our plays has impacted someone’s life. The effects may work slowly, a lingering impression, a new idea which takes root and grows slowly. It may be as simple as a group of children suddenly deciding to play “Pooh Sticks”. It may be as life-altering as a mother affirming her adult son’s readiness to take on the world. 

Theater’s impact may be hard to quantify but after you’ve experienced it yourself, it’s difficult to deny. You go into a darkened room. You lower your defenses as the story takes hold–story, which is (in the words of writer Russ Ramsey) “a Trojan horse for truth.” Two hours later, you emerge. Your imagination was ignited, your heart stirred, your mind awakened to new thoughts. And unlike a movie, your experience is unrepeatable, unique. You can’t watch it over and over until the words lose their impact and the magic fades into familiarity. Its very fleeting quality makes it something to treasure. A beautiful piece of theater, like any other piece of art, becomes a marker pointing heavenward, toward the source of all Beauty. In a world where it is easy to wallow in the mundane, the tragic, even the obscene, shouldn’t we be seeking out experiences of beauty, truth and goodness, while we still can?