Lakeshore Weekly News: A Family Act at Stages Theatre Company

By Ed Huyck, Reporter

Writing a book to celebrate that your son is growing up and ready to leave the nest? That's certainly something special. Seeing that son transform that book into a stage play? That's close to unique.

Tom and Adam Hegg share that bond, however. Two years ago, Adam wrote the script of his father's popular children's book, "PEEF The Christmas Bear," which premiered two years ago at Stages Theater Company.

This holiday season, Adam has done it again with another one of his father's books, "A Silent Night for PEEF."

Needless to say, his father is proud.

"I don't think any artist gets a higher privilege than creating something and then to give it to the next generation of the family. It doesn't get better than that. Santa definitely got my letter," Tom Hegg said.

Hegg wrote "A Silent Night for PEEF" just as Adam was getting ready to head off to college. Adam finished the final draft of the script while his newborn daughter sat on his lap.

"There was a real different emotional piece to it," Adam Hegg said. "It made it seem all the more real."

In bringing the story to a new medium, Adam was conscious of retaining the original story's balance.

"I wanted to balance the tender moments with the sort of snarky witticisms I hear from my students or the gentle teasing that goes on my family," he said.

While active in theater throughout his years at Breck, where the elder Hegg is a longtime teacher and drama coach (before that, he spent time on stage, including at the Guthrie Theater), Adam wasn't thinking of following in his father's footsteps as he left high school to attend St. Olaf.

Still, he found the passion was still there, as was an increased interest in becoming a teacher. Adam is now in his 11th school year as a teacher, currently instructing theater at the FAIR fine arts magnet schools in the Twin Cities area.

For his second time around with the material, Adam started by reading his father's book several times in a row.

"I went for a run and when I came back, I wrote the major story points from the book, along with the images that stuck with me over the run," he said.

As the book took shape, Adam was in touch with songwriter Michael Mahler, who provided the music for the first show, to discuss what songs and elements to bring back for the second play and which ones could be created for the second play.

"I've always been absolutely nuts about Christmas, seriously nuts about the whole season," said Tom Hegg, whose books include the four PEEF titles and "A Cup of Christmas Tree," his debut published in 1981. "No matter what changes I've gone through in my life, these books have always been the anchor," he said.

So what's on tap for the elder Hegg? Well, his latest book, "Little Dickens," takes characters from multiple Charles Dickens books and remixes them into a new story, with the aid of illustrator Kevin Cannon.

Also on tap: "Bring It!" which is a verse adaptation of a graduation address he gave at Breck in 2004 and "Baby Talk."

"I was commissioned by Tristan Press to write it, because they didn't know anyone who was more excited about being a grandpa," he said.