Introduction From the Mary Poppins Production Handbook, Copyright ©Disney/CML

Come feed the little birds,
Show them you care,
And you’ll be glad if you do.
Their young ones are hungry,
Their nests are so bare.
All it takes is tuppence from you.
Feed the birds, tuppence a bag,
Tuppence, tuppence, tuppence a bag.
— “Feed the Birds” by Richard and Robert Sherman

“‘Tuppence a bag’ has nothing to do with tuppence or bread crumbs. It’s about the fact that it doesn’t take much to give love, that it costs very little to make a difference to other people’s lives.” — Richard Sherman, songwriter

The Broadway musical of Mary Poppins contains numerous examples of ingenious imagining and reimagining. One of the greatest occurs with “Feed the Birds.” Following a scene at George’s office – a bank of intimidating proportions – in which Jane asks a single, pointed question of her father about recognizing value, Mary takes Jane and Michael past St. Paul’s Cathedral. On its steps they meet the Bird Woman. Jane is ready to dismiss this old lady in rags, but Mary makes sure the children stop and listen to her. The Bird Woman sings the Sherman Brothers’ classic, “Feed the Birds,” which was first heard in the movie, though in a different context. The words resonate deeply, personally, and in new ways in the stage version, following the interactions –  and transactions – that have just occurred at the bank. The song, now more clearly than ever, articulates something essential to this story and to us, the audience: Small gestures of kindness, rather than monetary transactions, fill our lives with joy, satisfaction, and meaning. 

With “Feed the Birds,” as in so many other songs and moments in the show, the writers have placed the Banks family in a world not just of  magic, but also of real people, real challenges, and real history. The Bankses are in need of Mary Poppins’s care and attention, but there is an  entire world of people (and other living  creatures) around them in need of equal care and
attention.

“We were all working under the directive that we would not do onstage anything we could not do as  well or better than it had been done in the film.”  – Julian Fellowes, book writer

The message of “Feed the Birds” applies to the act of theater-making as well. Theater does not require large budgets or high-tech wizardry to tell stories. Care and attention, along with imagination, teamwork, and commitment, will bring the show to life. The spectacular moments that likely stand out in your memory from viewing the stage show or the movie, and that have delighted people around the world, are about surprise, which can be manufactured with old-fashioned stagecraft and little else.

The stage adaptation is not a replica of the film, but an original musical that honors some of its greatest achievements and most beloved  moments. The screenwriters gave P.L. Travers’s fantastic (in all senses) stories a plot: The Bankses need Mary Poppins to nanny their children because they need to learn how to be a family. The stage adaptation builds upon this, giving Winifred Banks a fuller storyline, George Banks a backstory, the children a bit more room to grow from spoiled and bratty to kind and thoughtful, and the diversity of London’s economic classes fuller due. The stage musical clarifies the passage of time (fall to winter of a single year), so the audience can better chart their change. Over multiple productions, the musical’s team explored which aspects of the books, film, and their own imaginations were most stage-worthy. Ultimately, the goal was not to put any one version of Mary Poppins onstage, but to bring her magic to something that is both familiar and
new.

There is no doubt that you’ll enjoy your visit with Mary Poppins, and that she will bring your theatrical family closer together. This handbook is a toolkit for creating a vision that is all your own. It highlights what’s in store for your cast and creative team based on experience gathered over the course of many productions worldwide: the challenges discovered, the secrets unlocked, and the games played. The goal is to provide  resources that you can draw from as needed, including general and specific ways to approach the staging, background on the original concepts of the London and Broadway productions, historical information, design ideas, and more. This handbook should inspire you to make choices that serve the text in ways unique to your company and your creativity, because there are many ways of making magic. In essence, where Mary Poppins goes, magic goes too.