By Ed Moreth 

Plains youth travel to musical space

 

April 25, 2019

Ed Moreth

MUSICAL TUNE – Cast members sing "It Doesn't Matter If You're Tall or Small" during the musical Gulliver's Travels at Plains School. From the left: Princess of Brobdingnag (Hallie Corbin), King and Queen of Brobdingnag (Jacob Lulack and Peyton Wasson),Gulliver (Mikiah Cook), and The Invisible Force of Good (Austin Sultzbach).

Traveling in space seemed to be kid stuff Saturday when a group of Plains students performed "Gulliver's Travels," a musical of explorer Gulliver lost in space with a broken spaceship.

The 43 young actors, three student assistant directors, and two staff members of the Missoula Children's Theatre put on two performances of the musical Saturday afternoon at the Plains School gymnasium, where some 170 showed up for the play. The show was sponsored by the Plains Woman's Club, which has brought the Missoula Children's Theatre to Plains every other year for more than 40 years.

Throughout the week, Missoula Children's Theatre staff members Cassandra Lampen and Austin Sultzbach worked with the Plains School and Plains area homeschool kids, which ranged form kindergarten to sophomore, starting with auditions on Monday afternoon. The kids rehearsed for four hours a day from Monday through Friday, although the younger children rehearsed only three days.

The plot for the musical was that Gulliver and his android computer got stuck on a alien planet, where they meet an "invisible" force that teleports Gulliver from one place to another and helps Gulliver through various situations. "Gulliver discovers fighting aliens, arrogant Horse Leaders of the foolish Yahoos, larger-than-life royalty, and robots, all who need just as much help from Gulliver as Gulliver needs from them," according to the Missoula Children's Theatre.

The lead roles were performed by Darian Cremer and Mikiah Cook, who play Gulliver one and Gulliver two. Gabe Raymont plays JCN, Gulliver's inept robot. The King of Brobdingnag is portrayed by Jacob Lulack while the Queen of Brobdingnag was done by Peyton Wasson. The Princess of Brobdingnag was Hallie Corbin and the Maniacal Scientist of Lapunta was performed by Anna Hafner. While Lampen performed the role of stage manager, Sultzbach played the Invisible Force of Good that helped Gulliver. Caleb Lakko, Adelle Ercanbrack and Nate Hawthorne served as assistant directors and helped apply the makeup before the first show. Plains resident Heidi Mack volunteered her time at the piano to play 14 pieces in the play.

Nearly half of the students have performed with the Missoula Children's Theatre previously and nearly half said they want to be actors when they grow up. Cremer has performed with Missoula Children's Theatre four times and Cook has performed three times.

The Plains Woman's Club has sponsored the Missoula Children's Theatre 23 times. It cost the club $3,000 to bring the troupe to Plains this year. They recouped some of the costs with ticket prices, but only fetched $1,169. Tickets were $7 for adults and $5 for children. Preschool children were free. Many people stayed for both performances, said Deb Cleveland, the club treasurer.

"It's amazing what they learned in just a week," said club member Ellen Childress, who helped coordinate the event. "They're so focused. I didn't see any sign of stage fright and it looked like they were having fun," said Childress. The Plains Woman's Club provided dinner for the cast and staff each day of rehearsals. Plains resident Bonnie Neff housed the two staff members for the week.

Ed Moreth

DIRECTOR TOUCH UP – Missoula Children's Theatre Director Cassandra Lampen applies makeup to Gabe Raymont, the JCN robot in Gulliver's Travels.

"They did an absolutely wonderful job," said Sultzbach, who's been on the road with Lampen since mid January putting on the same play some 30 times in schools in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming. The Missoula Children's Theatre works with one school a week and provides all the costumes and setting. According to the Missoula Children's Theatre, they are the largest touring children's theatre in the nation and have been touring for over 40 years from Montana to Japan. They will visit some 1,200 communities in 2019 with 44 teams of actors/directors.

Lampen said she could see the development of the young actors throughout the week and felt they did a great job of remembering their lines. "Some of them were super shy at the beginning of the week, but by Friday, they were really having fun," said Lampen, who started her acting career in kindergarten. "They did such a good job; I'm so proud of them."

 

Reader Comments(0)

 
 

Powered by ROAR Online Publication Software from Lions Light Corporation
© Copyright 2024