With Devine Help, Cape Rep Mounts Original Musical ‘The 100 Aker Wood’ Based On Winnie-the-Pooh Stories

The Cape Rep Theatre, one of the Lower Cape’s most respected artistic institutions, is also one of its most creative. In addition to showcasing classic productions like “Mamma Mia!” and “Our Town,” the theater company has also staged premieres of never-before-seen productions.

Never has that been more true in the last few years, when the Cape Rep Theatre has performed a number of original shows. The through-line for many of those productions is the Devine family, which includes Maura “Mo” Hanlon, Cape Rep’s Associate Artistic Director, and Art Devine, a playwright and resident artist at the company, and their three sons — Paddo, Macklin and Seamus Devine — have been involved with productions since their youth and regularly perform together in Cape-based band Club 9-Ball.

The latest Devine family collaboration is “The Hundred Aker Wood,” an original musical based on A.A. Milne’s “Winnie-the-Pooh” stories, some of which entered the public domain in 2024. This show follows “Archibald Avery,” a similarly original musical that premiered at Cape Rep in 2023.

“I asked each of the boys separately if they would be interested in a fun acoustic musical,” said Hanlon. “Those stories are prevalent in my mind from my youth, so we decided to take two of them and run with it. Janine [M. Perry, Cape Rep’s Producing Artistic Director] was trying to figure out what was next for these guys creatively, and so it worked out perfectly.”

Hanlon, who also runs Cape Rep’s Young Company program, directed “The Hundred Aker Wood” and co-wrote the book and music with her three sons. The musical follows original characters as they enter the magical world of Winnie-the-Pooh and his animal friends.

Those stories and characters, both in the Milne stories and the iconic Disney adaptations, were foundational to the Devine boys’ upbringing. During early development on “The Hundred Aker Wood,” the creative team attempted to deprogram themselves of pre-conceived images of Pooh and his world.

“One of the first descriptions of Pooh is as a grizzly bear with a low, gruff voice,” said Seamus Devine. “That changed how we’re reading this, and how we’ve read it our entire lives. It reminds you that yes, these are animals. For example, how would a barn owl sing a song?”

“It’s getting your head away from all the Disney influence,” said Hanlon.

“The books are loaded with these classic episodes that have been ingrained in our understanding of what it was like to be a kid,” said Seamus. “They’re written with charm and timelessness. We discovered a story very early and stuck to it throughout, but we had to maintain that timeless heart of the original [Milne] stories with an overarching plot to tie it together.”

“We found that through-line almost immediately,” added Macklin. “Seamus and I sat down and read the entirety of ‘The House at Pooh Corner’ on a winter day before Christmas, and afterward we knew the themes that we stuck with throughout the entire process.”

“What’s interesting about the Milne books is that he’s not just writing for kids,” said Hanlon. “The narrative voice is so clever and mature. We started reading them out loud together at the theater, and songwriting started happening very soon afterward.”

Two weeks later, the creative team had five songs and some scenes written. According to Hanlon, the story itself went through five iterations before they settled on the final version.

“The musical talents are different between us, and it’s so exciting to sit down and figure it out together,” she said. “Paddo picks up a guitar and plays one thing, Macklin plays another, Seamus asks ‘what about this?’ and then I yell a melody at them. It’s a wonderful creative chaos that has been such a balm in the world of 2026, to be able to escape from everything for a while.”

“This show is like a bowl of chicken noodle soup with a cup of tea on a freezing day,” added Macklin. “You’re like, ‘oh, this is lovely.’”

The collaboration process was similar to the brothers’ usual method of writing music for their band. Paddo explained that “for the band, Seamus or Macklin will give me lyrics, and then Macklin and I will write the songs and play off each other’s ideas. For me, the show was similar, because I can’t write dialogue worth crap. I would sit there with a beer or tea going, ‘I don’t like this line, please switch this.’

“We’re already used to the creative dialogue,” he added, “because we’ve already written one show and multiple albums together. That’s a lot of music. So there’s already that vocabulary there, and not to depersonalize it, but it’s like I’m not even working with my family. We’ve all been creative together for so long that the process has become very streamlined. It can be fast.”

The tone of the show, as it developed, turned out to be exactly in the Devines’ wheelhouses.

“I have a tendency to write campfire-y, Appalachian songs,” said Macklin. “To live in a world very much like firewood and dirt was pretty easy of a transition for me.”

“I wasn’t allowed to have an electric guitar until I was proficient at an acoustic, so I fell in love with the acoustic dial early,” said Paddo. “It’s a nice creative outlet to write songs that would never get the green light for the band.”

“People like to pigeonhole things into genres,” said Seamus. “Growing up in the theater, we got a real sense for sound design. When we approach music, whether it’s for the band or a show, that’s always our goal. For this one, there are moments where we get to lean into the rock side of things. We all understand that we have to go where the story needs it to go sonically. It’s been pretty smooth.”

Hanlon promised many surprises in store for audiences when the musical opens next Thursday, Nov. 12. “These are such authentic characters, and they’re so familiar to us as people, as ourselves, and it’s what makes this story special.”

“It’s a play for kids and people who used to be kids,” said Paddo.

Along with the Devines, the show also features Ian Hamilton, Zack Johnson, Christina Morrell, Trish LaRose and Brian Lore Evans. “The Hundred Aker Wood” runs through Dec. 13. Showtimes and tickets can be found at caperep.org.