Fun Facts Behind Wonka’s Factory

Get ready for Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at The Hanover Theatre with fun facts about the author and the musical inspired by his classic book.

Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory tells the story of Willy Wonka, world famous candy creator. Charlie Bucket and four others are the winners of golden tickets, granting them access to Wonka’s marvelous and mysterious factory. The five of them embark on a mesmerizing journey through Wonka’s world of pure imagination, filled with life lessons, tantalizing sweets and incredible inventions. 

About the National Tour:

  • Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory The New Musical is based off the 1964 book “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” by Roald Dahl.
  • Dahl’s original “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” book was adapted into the 1971 movie “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.” The movie was remade in 2005 and again titled “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.” The national tour of the Broadway musical features several songs from the original film.
  • The musical has modernized details from the movie. For instance, Violet Beauregarde has her own YouTube channel and Mike Teavee has a cellphone and other screens added to his television obsession. However, the show still follows the beloved plot and timeless message that truth, kindness and selflessness triumph in the end.
  • Charlie and the Chocolate Factory the musical originally premiered in London’s West End. It opened on Broadway in April 2017.

About Roald Dahl: 

  • Roald Dahl’s book “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” was published on January 17, 1964.
  • Many of the once-fictional confections in the musical, such as Everlasting Gobstoppers and Wonka Bars, are now produced by the Willy Wonka Company Candy Company and were first produced in Chicago.
  • Dahl wrote over 30 books for children and adults. In addition to “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” Dahl was the author of “Matilda,” “The BFG,” “James and the Giant Peach,” “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,” “Fantastic Mr Fox,” “Danny Champion of the World,” “The Enourmous Crocodile,” “My Uncle Oswald,” “The Twits,” “George’s Marvelous Medicine,” “The Witches,” “The Gremlins,” “Sometime Never: A Fable for Supermen,” “The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me,” “Essio Trot,” “The Vicar of Nibbleswicke,” “The Minpins” and over 85 other short stories, poems, scripts and works of non-fiction.
  • Many of Dahl’s stories have been adapted for stage and screen. “Matilda” was adapted into Matilda the Musical, which opened on the West End in 2011, on Broadway in 2013, with a national tour that launched in 2015.
  • In addition to an author, Dahl was a spy, ace fighter-pilot, chocolate historian and medical inventor.
  • Roald Dahl was inspired by England’s largest chocolate makers’ frequent attempts to infiltrate each other’s factories and steal recipes, which led English chocolate factories to become extremely secretive and mysterious over time. Dahl was also inspired by the chocolate makers’ practice of inviting school children to sample new confections before they were to be mass produced. At one of the boarding schools Dahl attended, pupils were invited to sample chocolate bars. This memory stuck with him and served as inspiration for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
  • Roald Dahl wrote in a hut at the bottom of his garden surrounded by odds and ends such as his own hipbone which he’d had replaced, and a big ball of metal foil made from years’ worth of chocolate wrappers. His footrest was a suitcase.

Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory visits The Hanover Theatre and Conservatory for the Performing Arts Tuesday, March 3 – Sunday March 8. Be sure to get your own golden tickets today at TheHanoverTheatre.org.

Photos by Jeremy Daniel.

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