Rather than bringing in a touring production as it has in the past. for the first time last year, the Asolo Rep staged its own family-friendly summer show, based on the “Frog and Toad” series of children’s books that relate the daily adventures of two best friends with opposite personalities.

It was an over-the-top production, with colorful costumes; vaudeville style music and dance scenes; broad, cartoonish characters; and of course, the requisite happy ending. Nevertheless, the appearance of “The Large and Terrible Frog” – a monsterish character rumored to eat little frogs and bunnies – was simply too much for the then-4-year-old son of Asolo Associate Artistic Director Cat Brindisi, who choreographed the show.

“Henry would not watch ‘Frog and Toad,’ he’s scared of everything,” Brindisi recalls. “The Large and Terrible Frog really traumatized him. At that age, everything is magnified because you’re so little.”

Gauging the potential sensitivities of the youngest members of an audience is just one of the considerations necessary when creating the productions known in the theater world as “TYA” or “theater for young audiences.” Making a storyline easily understandable while still keeping things surprising and entertaining for parents and older audience members is another.   

But regardless of who’s watching, says Brindisi, who is directing and choreographing this summer’s Asolo family-friendly show, “The Wizard of Oz: Youth Edition,” the goal is to “make really great theater.”

“We don’t have to dumb anything down for kids, in fact, if we did, they’d be repulsed by it,” says Brindisi, who grew up immersed in the theater world in Minneapolis, with a mother who was an actor and a father who owned a dinner theater. “You cannot be condescending. You have to keep it inventive, creative and innovative and treat it just the way we would any other production.”

This year’s production was chosen – by an Asolo team that included Producing Artistic Director Peter Rothstein, Brindisi, Dramaturg James Monaghan and Education Director Terrance Jackson – for multiple reasons, beginning with the story’s “incredibly rich pedigree from a great literary inspiration” as Monaghan calls it. Pretty much anyone over the age of 30 has either seen the 1939 film starring Judy Garland, or read the original 1900 classic “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” by L. Frank Baum.

But perhaps more significant in appealing to younger audiences was the more recent “Wicked” franchise, beginning with the 1995 revisionist novel by Gregory Maguire, which blossomed into a hit Broadway show and two acclaimed movies.

“With the cultural phenomenon that has been ‘Wicked,’ we thought it might be the perfect moment to revisit that story,” Monaghan says.

Finally, the story itself – “about finding the confidence to believe in yourself knowing it’s been in you all along” – and Brinidisi’s  theatrical sensibilities “which lean so much into the world we knew we’d have to use to make the magic happen for this play” combined to make the selection an easy choice, Monaghan says.

But for Brindisi, making her Asolo directorial debut, the ease stopped as soon as she recognized the challenges of condensing a complex story with dramatic changes in settings and tone into a mere hour and 10 minute production, while having an eight-person cast cover 35 different roles and still including snippets of the oh so familiar songs and lines.

“You kind of think Wizard of Oz is easy, everyone knows it, “ Brindisi says. “But the story is actually really complicated. There’s the winky guards and the monkeys and in and out of the castle and so many locations!….This is not an easy play by any stretch.”

The nature of theater as opposed to film means audiences familiar with the movie should not expect a replication. A scene can’t suddenly burst into Technicolor; a Wicked Witch’s shoes can’t shrivel up and disappear.

“We have to do it differently,” Monaghan says. “Making that a virtue instead of an obstacle has been our guiding north star.”

Brindisi has surmounted any obstacles with creativity and inventiveness. Because every member of the cast except Dorothy plays multiple roles (the original script called for 12 to 15 people), she had to discover “fun ways for them to transform on stage into different characters,” making them a part of the “magic” of the show that would especially appeal to children.

“I thought we’re either going to be apologizing for that all night or we could make it ‘the thing,’” she says. “So they literally see people transform in front of their eyes. My hope is that because you see all the magic, they see that they’re just actors playing pretend. And the joy of that for me is it’s what our kids do every day, they constantly play pretend.”

Brindisi also found creative ways to reinterpret some of what in the film was created with special effects. For example, the cyclone is done with shadow puppetry; Toto is played by an actor manipulating a shaggy puppet with sticks; the Wizard, depicted as a floating head in the film, is represented in “a quirkier way;” and there’s “a surprise element that happens when Dorothy wakes up in the Land of Oz.”

In contrast to last year’s production, there is an authenticity in the personalities portrayed that help create a connection despite the brief time for their development. Brindisi says she is directing the production “exactly the same” as she would any show.

“With ‘Frog and Toad,’ the vaudeville nature of it lent itself to over-the-top,” she says. “But with this play, we do a huge disservice if we play too cartoony, especially at the beginning when we’re in Kansas and they’re playing real people living and working on a farm. As long as there’s truth in the beginning, we can go bigger with the characters in the Land of Oz.”

Half of the actors in the production are from the FSU/Asolo Conservatory graduate acting program; the other half are recently graduated BFA musical theater majors from Florida State University that Brindisi auditioned in Tallahassee. While a few members of the cast are, in Brindisi’s words, “triple, quadruple threats” with multiple artistic/musical skill sets, at least three others are “non-dancers” and a couple had never sung.

“I thought, oh God, this will be a total mess,” she says, “but it’s actually turned out to be the total opposite. I stuck to my guns about just finding the right people to build this with me and whatever skills they lack, I’d work around. And they brought so much to the table right away.”

If all goes as planned, Brindisi aims to find that delightful but delicate balance captured by children’s shows like “Sesame Street” and “Bluey” that appeal on multiple levels to both children and their parents. Regardless of age, audience members are likely to connect with the nuanced comedic elements of the production, Monaghan believes.

“It’s such an effort of fine tuning,” he says. “The way the humor works, what a 2-year-old will find funny and what a 35-year-old parent will find funny may differ. But we don’t go too long in this show without hitting both of those audiences.”

Brindisi says the show has a “really exciting ending I’m really proud of.” She hopes it will motivate the children in the audience to go home, “hang a sheet and stack some boxes” to create their own land of imagination, while at the same time inspiring adults to think about “their own hopes and dreams over the rainbow.”

“My number one hope with this production is that people leave thinking, ‘I thought it was going to be a kids show; I didn’t know I was going to have such a good time too.’ And that adults will walk away asking about bigger questions than what they might imagine a little production of ‘Wizard of Oz’ would inspire.”

As for Henry, now 5, who has accompanied his mother to a few Oz rehearsals, he recently gave his mother a “two thumbs up” on the production. Only after suggesting, however, that maybe it wasn’t really necessary for the Wicked Witch to “scream so loud.”

“Probably not,” Brindisi agreed.

“The Wizard of Oz: Youth Edition,” by Frank Baum, presented by Asolo Repertory Theatre. Directed and choreographed by Cat Brindisi, music direction by Carl Haan. July 8-Aug. 2 at the Cook Theatre, FSU Center for the Arts, 7777 N. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota. $15-$19. https://asolorep/show/wizard-of-oz/; 941-351-8000