Sideways Stories From Wayside School

After the resounding success of last year’s production of Roald Dahl’s The BFG, Renegade Theatre Experiment has decided to present another theatrical adaptation of a beloved and yet deliriously askew children’s novel, Sideways Stories From Wayside School, adapted for the stage by John Olive from the books by Louis Sachar.

Wayside School was supposed to be 30 classrooms, one story high, but by mistake it was built 30 classrooms straight up, one on top of another! And that’s not all that’s funny here. This bizarre building is home to cows, rats, a ghost and an evil teacher who turns her students into apples. Louis Sachar explains the story’s origins during his student days at U.C. Berkeley: “In 1976, I got college credit for helping out at a nearby elementary school, [Hillside Elementary in Berkeley]. I got to know the kids in the class really well, and that’s what led to the kids in Wayside school…”