Frances Hodgson Burnett

Racketty Packetty House Frances Hodgson Burnett

From the writer of classic The Secret Garden comes this highly entertaining and unique play. Based on her best selling novel, Frances Hodson Burnett's adaptation of her story was "a distinct accomplishment" when it opened as the first play of the new Children's Theatre on top of Broadway's Century Theatre. At the time her characters from the story were as much a part of the general imagination as were those of the Brothers Grimm. Racketty Packetty House is a dollhouse where dolls actually are alive and only pretend not to be so real people won't make them do things they don't want to do. Peter Piper and the others of his doll family face a crisis when their owner receives a present of a new dollhouse built like a castle. The old fashion dolls along with Racketty-Packetty House are to be banished to the cellar, or worse, burned up. Frances Hodgson Burnett was one of a few writers who also dramatized their own novels. Her first successful play was Little Lord Fauntleroy which was so popular that it ran on Broadway for over four years and toured the country extensively. She also adapted her novels The Secret Garden and The Little Princess based on her novella Sara Crewe.