June 17, 2010

Young actors ready for ‘Crusoe’

Performances are at 2 and 7 p.m. Saturday at TDW auditorium

By Ethan Knudson
The Chronicle

     Around 10 o’clock Monday morning The Dalles Wahtonka High School auditorium, filled with children and their parents, is ripe with nervous energy.
     A small, suntanned boy with bleached-blonde hair fidgets in his seat, scanning the audience, while a girl whispers urgently to her friend across the auditorium seats.
     “It’s fun to watch the kids,” said Lorie Hull, grandmother of two children who were auditioning. “You never know what’s going to come out of their mouth.”
     A boy with short, brown hair and glasses, speaking vigorously with his neighbor, mimes throwing up several times, complete with sound effects.
     These families gathered to participate in auditions for the Missoula Children’s Theatre’s production of “The Amazing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe,” is a musical loosely based on the novel by Daniel Defoe, where the entire casts discovers “that our differences need not stand in the way of our friendships. All of the characters live happily and harmoniously ever after,” the production brochure reads.
     Missoula Children’s Theatre is an arts organization that, with the help of 47 sets of touring directors and numerous volunteers, will put together 1,200 performances with 65,000 children in 17 countries this year. The organization is dedicated to providing arts experiences that are affordable for all communities, regardless of their size or affluence, according to their website.
     On Saturday, June 19, after just 20 hours of rehearsal, the 58 children cast in the play will present the full-length musical twice, complete with dance moves, memorized lines and blocking.
     “An adult would say it’s impossible, but the kids don’t know it is.” said Alyssa Perau, one of the two directors.
     As the pair of directors finish up last-minute logistics, they come to the center of the stage, drawing the audience to a hush. The two young women explain the premise of the show. The play, in flashbacks, tells the story of Robinson Crusoe and his sole companion, a goat named Wilson, were shipwrecked on an island. It details his subsequent adventures with the population of the island.
     “Have you done a play before?” asks a small boy from the front row, after the directors note that this is their first production of the show this summer. They confirm that, yes, they have been in plays before.
     “Now let me tell you about all of the awesome parts you can play,” said one of the directors. The children lean in eagerly to hear as she lists the hula-dancing chameleons, the all-animal octet, and Friday and his family.
     When they mention the family of big, tough goats, one little boy lifts his arms and flexes his biceps for all to see.
     The Dalles is the first of eight residencies for Lisa Danielle Michaels and Alyssa Perau, co-directors of the show. Lisa, originally of Blomfield Hills, Michigan, will be a junior at State University of New York at Fredonia this fall. She is a major in musical theater. Alyssa will be a junior with a major in acting performance at Viterbo University in La Crosse, Wisconsin this fall.
     “I’m really entranced by the opportunity to share the universal language of theater with children,” Michaels said. She loves the idea of touring, and found Missoula by chance, she said.
     “I love to see them come out of their shells and open up,” Perau said. “We’re not out to make actors or actresses, but to let them do anything.”
     The production is not just about acting, but building life skills like self-confidence, she said.
     “I went to a school where the arts did not have a lot of support, and I wanted to go to comparably small places that lack these opportunities,” Perau said. She grew up in Dodge Center, a small town in Minnesota.
     The kids, with their tie-dyed shirts and mismatched socks, fill the stage and arrange themselves in a circle from shortest to tallest.
     To begin the audition, the children go around in a circle saying their first and last names and age as if they were the scary monster that lives under the bed. Reid Reimers, an employee of Missoula and twice the size of the average kid at the audition, demonstrates.
     “I’M REID AND I’M 28!” he roars, filling the auditorium with his deep, booming voice. With variations in rhythm and style, they proceed around the circle, one after another. They do this several times with lines from the play. One boy, to complement his performance, falls to the ground every time he says his line.
     When a small child refuses to say the line, “I love ice cream,” Lisa gets down on one knee in front of him.
     “Tell me how much you love ice cream!” she urges him.
     After this, the future actors and actresses are taught simple choreography in groups to test their dances moves. Later, they sing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” while the directors walk around them, judging their singing abilities.
Offstage, the actors exude confidence.
     “I’ve performed in lots of plays, and I’ve never been nervous,” said Leon Linebarger, an actor.
     “I’m not nervous,” said True Smith, one of the chameleons. True is 6½ years old, and this will be his third time acting in a Missoula production.
     “We have most of our lines memorized already,” said Jordan Palmer Wednesday. Palmer, age 13, will be playing Wilson, Robinson Crusoe’s goat companion. This will be Palmer’s seventh Missoula play.
     “Alyssa gives us basic directions and we expand on that,” said Jennifer Stiles, the 16-year-old actress playing Robinson Crusoe. Stiles has acted in six Missoula shows previously. She and Palmer said they are excited to add their own little bits.
     “I love to ad-lib, I just don’t know if they’ll let us,” Palmer said.
     Most of all, the children said they spend a week of their summer acting because they think it is fun.
     “What goes on backstage is more funny than what happens in the play,” said Shannon Whitmire, an actress.
     “I can’t wait to be in the play,” said Colin McLoughlin, one of the chameleons.
As the directors make their final decisions, the kids spin in place, jabber with one another, and play games. A hand is suddenly raised, and all goes silent.
     “Sometimes in a play there aren’t enough parts that you get to cast everyone,” Lisa said. At this, voices hush and the tension becomes thick. For a moment, all is still.
     “But we got to cast everyone!” she shouts. The new cast cheers.
Performances are at 2 and 7 p.m., Saturday, June 19 at The Dalles Wahtonka High School Auditorium.