DETROIT, MI–A total delight. Go to the Detroit Mercy Theatre Company’s website here, and book tickets for you and your kids before you miss out.

The collegiate company is presenting A Year With Frog and Toad, and the 70-minute production is the most enjoyable work of youth theatre I have seen in years. But it only plays this weekend and next weekend. Get the kids or grandkids, buy your tickets, and see it.

I seldom start a review like that. But my face hurt at the end of the show from smiling and laughing so much.

Hopefully, you know the Frog and Toad childrens books. It is a series of children’s books written and illustrated by Arnold Lobel. Each book contains five simple, often humorous, poignant, short stories telling of the exploits of an anthropomorphic frog and toad. The situations in which they find themselves are a cross between the human and animal worlds.

In A Year With Frog and Toad, the stories include Toad (Luke Adamkiewicz) lamenting that he has never received a letter by mail. Frog (Alexander Knightwright) wants to do something nice for his friend, so he writes him a letter. In delicious irony, the mail carrier is a snail (Josiah Martelle)…(snail-mail?) and so the letter takes months to reach Toad.

In another vignette, Toad is afraid to be seen swimming in the pond without clothes on. The other animals taunt Toad a bit when he does, singing “Getta Load of Toad,” but the relationship between Frog and Toad bolsters Frog’s ability to withstand the teasing.

The beautiful part of the Frog and Toad stories, and this show, is the emphasis on the importance and life-giving sustenance that comes from friendship, service to friends, sympathy and empathy. And the writing does so without being preachy or obvious. It’s just all baked into the lovely, delightful, funny characters. Every theatre should do this play as a way to bring in young people and their families to a theatre experience. It would give us a break from the endless stream of productions of Seussical.

Mr. Knightwright and Mr. Adamkiewicz are treasures in the roles, having developed a beautiful stage chemistry. Both have ideal singing voices for the roles, and Mr. Knightright’s bass-baritone singing and speaking voice is made for children’s story-telling, while also being a perfect complement to Mr. Adamkiewicz’s vocals.

The ensemble of Gracie Sheets, Katherine Mutschler, Annalise Udell and Mr. Martelle work beautifully together. Mr. Martell’s snail, with a rolled up sleeping bag on his back to represent his shell, draws laughs and giggles each time he makes an appearance on stage. His three ensemble mates appear throughout the four seasons of the time-lapse as squirrels, birds, moles and mice with minor and clever changes to their costumes. For example, as moles, they wore welding goggles on their heads above their eyes.

Directed ably by Sarah Hawkins Rusk and Music Directed by Daniel Greig, Choreographed by Hayley Pulizzi, this Frog and Toad will strain your smile muscles to the max. Costume Designer Mary Elizabeth Valesano achieved a great result with all the changes to the ensemble’s costumes. Scenic designer Alan Devlin has created two home/dens for Frog and Toad that look right out of a storybook.

This production gets our highest recommendation for adults and children.

The play is presented at The Marlene Boll Theatre at the Detroit YMCA. Parking is easiest at the nearby Z lot. The theatre’s website for showtimes and tickets is Detroit Mercy Arts.