Really Rosie

"Really Rosie," through spring 2008, Rosenbach Museum & Library, 2008-2010 Delancey Place, 215-732-1600, rosenbach.org.

by Lori Hill

visual art

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Once upon a time, a young Brooklynite named Maurice Sendak got a kick out of some neighborhood kids putting on shows. One little girl named Rosie particularly made him laugh, so he made some sketches. Fast forward a few decades to Sendak's The Sign on Rosie's Door, the story of an ambitious girl with a wild imagination, willing friends and a whole lot of dress-up clothes. Soon after, TV came calling, Carole King was writing songs and an animated special called Really Rosie aired in 1975. Rosie was the hit she always wanted to be, and now, the Rosenbach, the world's largest Sendak repository, is making her a star once more. "Really Rosie" deconstructs the show, with drawings, animation cels, King's handwritten sheet music and the TV special itself projected on the wall. The show features Rosie as the archetypal bossy little girl from down the street, a lovable drama queen-in-training who clomps around in heels, ball gown and feather boa, ordering everyone into their roles. Her co-stars — Johnny, Chicken Soup, Pierre (pulled from Sendak's other books) — have the littlest Brooklyn accents and listen intently to the words of their precocious director. King's songs are inspired and funny ("There Once Was a Boy Named Pierre," "Alligators All Around") and the lyrics will sound wonderfully familiar to Sendak fans. The best, though, may be yet to come, as the Rosenbach will play host to "There's a Mystery There: Sendak on Sendak," a retrospective housed in four galleries, in May 2008.

"Really Rosie," through spring 2008, Rosenbach Museum & Library, 2008-2010 Delancey Place, 215-732-1600, rosenbach.org.