Cabinet of Wonder
Through an innovative partnership, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Children’s Theatre, and Natalie Merchant have produced Cabinet of Wonder, an immense labor of love, several years in the making. The project features 16 music videos, a cast of 24 child actors, 27 musicians, a magic cabinet, elaborate costumes and sets, and shadow puppetry created by Chicago-based theater group Manual Cinema.
The series was created for the enrichment of preschool and kindergarten children, and as a useful resource for their caregivers and teachers. A delightful introduction to music, poetry, and the dramatic arts for young audiences, Cabinet of Wonder reimagines Mother Goose and her rhymes for a new generation of young children with modern interpretations of the classic child-centered canon.
In the series, Merchant plays a dual role: a modern-day fun and friendly librarian-teacher figure named Miss Natalie, who has a passion for nursery rhymes, and an eighteenth-century fashioned Mother Goose who introduces the children, through song and dance, to the characters in her rhymes. Children come to visit Miss Natalie and are transported by her stories, rhymes, and big blue cabinet (which houses a secret shadow puppet theatre behind its doors). This Cabinet of Wonder serves as a beautiful portal through which the children both view and become the inhabitants of Rhyming Town in The Land of Make-Believe.
The TMW Center is honored to be a partner and advisor to this special project, helping to create resources that will allow caregivers and educators to truly leverage the developmental benefits of this joyful work of art.