News

On the morning of May 1, in the St. Olaf College Theater Building, a china rabbit named Edward returned home — not just in his story, but to the hands of the writer who dreamed him into being. 

Kate DiCamillo, the acclaimed Minnesota-based author of beloved classics such as Because of Winn-Dixie and The Tale of Despereaux, watched from the audience as St. Olaf students brought her 2006 novel, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, to life. The production, adapted by Dwayne Hartford and directed by Visiting Instructor in Theater Sara Pillatzki-Warzeha, marked the first time DiCamillo had seen a full-length staging of her book. 

As the curtain closed on the performance, Pillatzki-Warzeha admitted that it was a nerve-wracking experience to bring the novel to life in front of its creator — one of Minnesota’s most well-known authors.

“I thought I was going to throw up this morning,” Pillatzki-Warzeha said. “But then I saw her crying at the end, and I thought — okay, good. She’s not crying because she hated it. She’s crying because we did the story justice.”

That story — of a once-pampered toy rabbit who learns to listen, lose, and love — first came to Pillatzki-Warzeha’s attention a decade ago, when a friend recommended the show to her. Despite initial skepticism about a play marketed to children, Pillatzki-Warzeha went to a performance with her mother.

“I sat in my car and cried for 30 minutes after seeing it,” Pillatzki-Warzeha said. “I told every director I knew: this play is so good. I have to do it someday. And now, this was the right time and right cast.”

It wasn’t just the first time DiCamillo had seen the show performed in full — it was also likely the first experience of live theater for many in the audience, which was largely made up of Greenvale Park Elementary students St. Olaf had invited to see the play and meet the author. That was part of the magic, Pillatzki-Warzeha said. 

“There are so many ways to tell stories — not on a phone or an iPad, but in real time,” she said. “Some of these kids have never been in a theater. I wanted them to feel like things are possible.”

DiCamillo, who has seen many of her books adapted for film and stage, described the experience of watching Edward Tulane unfold onstage as transformative. 

“The beautiful thing is, you don’t sit there thinking, ‘I wrote that.’ You’re just in the story,” she told students during a post-show Q&A. “It pulls you entirely out of yourself. And it is a wonderful thing — to be in a room with other people, and to be in a story together.”

She described how the music, unique to this production and composed by St. Olaf students in  collaboration with visiting artist Peter Morrow, deepened the story’s emotion. 

“Music does what illustrations do in a book,” DiCamillo said. “It adds feeling, access. It helps you understand how you’re feeling.”

DiCamillo’s novel, and its play adaptation, follows Edward as he passes through hands and homes — from the Egypt Street home of the girl Abilene, to a fisherman’s wife’s kitchen, a hobo’s campfire, and a dying child’s sickbed — each encounter reshaping his understanding of love. When Edward’s fragile porcelain body breaks, it is swiftly mended. When his heart breaks, it takes years to fill in the cracks. 

DiCamillo’s favorite moment comes not during the toy’s grand odyssey, but when Edward begins to truly listen to his transient companions. 

“When you learn to let other people’s stories in, it breaks you and saves you at the same time,” she told audience members.

During a Q&A with the production’s cast of St. Olaf students, DiCamillo spoke about how her writing wrestles with the world as it is: brutal, beautiful, and never one or the other alone.

“Kids need [stories like this] because they live in the same world that we live in,” she said. “Every kid gets that they are going to lose people that they love and they are going to see terrible things happen. This is such a brutal world, and it is a beautiful world.”

For Pillatzki-Warzeha, the story’s message has never felt more urgent. 

“There’s not a time that I have lived through yet that felt more like it needed this story of love and learning,” she said. “To see people for who they are, sharing in their struggles and trials, becoming aware — having the moment where you feel seen and heard.” 

The theme resonated deeply with student cast members and audience members alike, including some who wiped tears away beside their teachers or families. As the final lines echoed through the theater — “Once there was a rabbit who found his way home” — the emotional silence was quickly replaced by thunderous applause. 

And for a moment, it was clear: on a stage at St. Olaf College, a story had traveled full circle — from book, to script, to performance, and back to the person who first imagined it. A miraculous journey, indeed.