The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin, Kirsten Childs' lauded and light-hearted musical about growing up black and confused, will have its Chicago-area premiere at the Apple Tree Theatre in Highland Park, IL, in fall 2002, a theatre representative confirmed.

The show was to have been part of the 2001-02 season but was eventually pushed back to next fall.

Tom Murray will be the musical director. Childs is expected to take a creative role in shaping the production. An NEA grant for the staging specified the musical would be re-orchestrated. No director or cast have been selected.

LaChanze, the actress who made her name in Once On This Island, starred in the title role of The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin when it had its world premiere at Playwrights Horizons in May 2000. Prior to production, the Childs work had won a clutch of honors, including the Jonathan Larson Foundation Award, the Edward Kleban Award for lyrics and The Richard Rodgers Production and Development awards.

Off-Broadway, Wilfredo Medina directed and A.C. Ciulla choreographed the musical memoir that follows the journey of Viceca "Bubbly" Stanton, who struggles with conflicting messages about gender, race and relationships between the 1960s and the 1990s. —By Robert Simonson