Once upon a time I went to a show and it was called Pride and Prejudice. It was about a young woman who lived in this really crazy family and she met this man named Mr. Darcy (Dennis Grimes) who didn't like her family and was a very bad conversationalist. This play is called Pride and Prejudice because Mr. Darcy is Pride and Prejudice is Elizabeth (Laura McClain), the main character. Mr. Darcy is very proud because he has a lot of money and usually, in books, people with a lot of money are usually very proud. He has very rich and so-called nice people that are related to him. He's proud of all of these amazingly rich-y things that happened to his friends and colleagues and relations. Elizabeth is prejudiced because she looks at Mr. Darcy and judges his book by the cover.
This performance wasn't exactly like the book. Elizabeth wasn't the narrator in the book like she was in the play. But it is just better to have the main character narrate in a play because it is like telling someone about this time that happened, and if the narrator wasn't actually there it's not as realistic. Having her talk to the audience makes it seem more like she's the main character. They like that character more if she's talking to them. If Elizabeth didn't interact with the audience in the play, you would be missing all these funny parts that the narrator says in the book. At the very start of the play Elizabeth comes over and says, "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife" from the actual book. But she keeps getting interrupted by her family. It shows you it is a comedy/romance. They left out one of my favorite parts which was, "Time, and her aunt, moved slowly." I just thought that was so funny; it left my mom and me laughing for like two hours. But they put in a part to make up for that which was "Oh no!" when Mary (Cassidy Shea Stirtz) started playing the piano and singing because Mary was a pretty bad singer.
One of my favorite parts was when Mrs. Bennet (Cameron Feagin) jumps out of bed like she was never sick in her life. "I'm just in my clothes! and my shoes!" She was in bed because Lydia (Kirsty Rivett) had run off with Mr. Wickham (James Gasber). They ran away with each other in Bawwwth (Bath) where you can have bawths. That's a true story. You can actually have very good bawths in Bawwwth. I really really like Mrs. Bennet, not because she's nice--she's actually kind of a weird character--but because she just makes weird and funny decisions. She is very excited about this handsome man who is coming to visit. I expected Mrs. Bennet to act weirdly funny and that was what Cameron did. I thought she did an awesome job.
I thought Mr. Bennet (Don Bender) was really funny but in a different way. Mrs. Bennet was funny in a way that just said this character is a character that is lovably enthusiastic. Mr. Bennet is funny because he is very deadpan. Like when he says "Thank you so much, Mary, you've delighted us long enough" when she's doing a terrible job at singing. He thinks everything is something to laugh about. He is basically like my grandpa--very ornery.
I loved the scene where Mr. Darcy was dancing with Elizabeth. They start dancing because Sir William (Wm. Bullion) comes over and is like, "Join each other! Dance!" and Elizabeth is like, "ohhh. kaaay." Then they were just standing there for awhile talking and then the other dancers were confused because they didn't have their third couple. It is funny having two people talk in the middle of a dance when they are supposed to be dancing. I looked at Charlotte's look and I noticed her look the most, it was just so fuh-larious. She looked so confused and awesomely awesome. And Jane (Amanda Drinkall) was also really funny because she was so absorbed in her future husband Mr. Bingley (Micah J. L. Kronlokken) and she was just smiling and not noticing she was about to run into someone. But fortunately, she didn't. This scene told you that Elizabeth and Darcy weren't best friends at all. You think, "They are never going to get together. They hate each other so much, why would they ever get together?"
I was really happy that they used Kitty (Kelsey Jorissen) and Lydia talking about the officers from the book because it is just so funny to have these girls always chattering about the officers and how great they are and which ones are coming to the ball. Them talking about the officers helps you remember that they are koo kooo! I thought the sisters did a good job talking about the officer and how awesome they are.
Laura McClain just seemed exactly how Elizabeth should be. She should be funny and smart and clever. And she has just the right amount of spunk to her. I just thought she looked exactly how Elizabeth should, which was a little coat and a long plain white dress. I think Bill Morey did a thumbs-up job with costume design. He made me want to wear Elizabeth's dress that he made. I thought Mr. Darcy was also just right because he did an awesome job of pretending to be mean in the play. Then when he became nice, you are like, "How did he do that?" And he did it with the power of acting.
I really liked the scene where Lady Catherine de Bourgh was trying to stop Elizabeth from marrying Mr. Darcy. Lady Catherine's costume was a big enormous blue dress with peacock feathers all over. It is so ridiculously awesome. It made her seem very unreasonable with cash, like she buys stuff she really doesn't need. The scene was satisfying because Elizabeth was just saying "I don't care. I'll do what I want." You are feeling like, "Wow, she is a very brave and sophisticated woman."
I think this show should be for ages 6 and up. It is very kid-friendly, but it is pretty long. So just warn the children that they will have to sit through a very long time, but there is an intermission. People that would like this show are people that like Jane Austen, officers, and women in peacock-feather dresses trying to get in the way of lovers. People should see it because it is awesome, fun, and hilarious.
Photos: Suzanne Plunkett
Once upon a time, I went to a show and it was called Arcadia. It took place in two times. It is the same place only in different time periods: the time that we are in right now and Jane Austen's time. It is about two things. It is about this girl Thomasina (Hilary Williams) and her tutor Septimus (Billy Fenderson)and how nice they are to each other. She is working on math; she is like a mathematician. She has discovered a cool kind of math that helps you learn how to make a leaf. Only it is more math-y than just making a leaf. There are three love triangles that the tutor is in. The tutor is in love with the lady of the house (Saren Nofs-Snyder), and her husband, of course, is in love with her. And Chater (Joe Zarrow) is also in love with Mrs. Chater and the tutor was found in carnal embrace with Mrs. Chater--which to my knowledge is gross. The third triangle is Septimus, Lady Croom, and Thomasina. They both like Septimus. He likes both of them but one of them in not as romantic a way as Lady Croom. And in the other time period, they are trying to figure out what happened in the house. Bernard (Dan Granata) thinks that Chater was killed there by Byron. Byron was a poet, but he also killed pigeons. And Hannah (Marsha Harman)is trying to find out who the hermit was and then once she hears from Valentine (Pat King) she wants to learn more about Thomasina and what discoveries she'd made in math and stuff like that. There are only two love triangles in this time period. There is Bernard and Chloe (Kaitlyn Griggs) and Hannah; Bernard is the center of that triangle. Actually, one of them is not a love triangle; it is a love square. It is Bernard, Hannah, Valentine, and Gus (Scott Ray Merchant).
When you get to the theater, you get to look for stuff that you'll get to find in the show. You get to look at stuff that will give you clues about mysteries in the show. For example, there was this game book that shows how many animals you've shot. You could find Byron and how many things he shot. And I also really liked the math book. There was this really cool math book that was Thomasina's math book, and then when you looked at it, it showed the cool leaf-making thing. I think you should start looking when the intermission is going on, because then everything makes much more sense. You also get to have a tea party. There is a tea party before that is really awesome. They have little cute biscuits, and they have packages of tea, and they have things to sweeten your tea, like sugar cubes. And the tea comes in little cute cups. Having to find stuff makes the performance more exciting because then you are thinking "Maybe there is something I can look for outside that will help me find a clue to something that I like in the play."
I really thought the first scene was funny. It makes you feel good and gets you absorbed in the fun, and then, when we get to the sad parts that are just scattered around at points you are not expecting, you feel sad, but then when it gets to a funny part you feel happy. And then that helps you forget about that sad thing that is going to happen--or has happened. When you walk in at the beginning you see Septimus and Thomasina sitting in chairs. Thomasina is doing math, of course. And Septimus, not of course, is looking at Chater's new poem. Thomasina asks "Septimus, What is carnal embrace?" and then it starts to get funny because he says "it is the practice of throwing one's arms around a side of beef." That is the terriblest explanation I have ever heard because carnal embrace is much grosser than throwing your arms around a side of meat but much less weird. It is not gross to everybody; it is basically just gross to children or young people. I also really liked Noakes (Michael Mercier) because this is when he started always giving his hand to Lady Croom and she never took it, which always makes him sad--very very sad. She would never take it because she doesn't like Noakes very much because she thinks he's dumb because he wants to make a hermitage where there was no hermitage because then he can paint it and pretend it is an old hermitage and in that time that was called being "picturesque." I don't really understand the people in that time because they have such weird ideas about what is picturesque and what is not.
I really liked the scene where Bernard said his speech. It was a funny and not true speech, but it really cracked me up a lot because Hannah kept interrupting at different parts and Bernard was getting angry with her in a funny way because he was like growling in a funny way, and I just thought it was really awesome. But then Chloe stopped being so complimentary and would yell "Shut up!" at Hannah. That was a little bit funny because she had such a high voice that it was hard to imagine such a nice girl saying shut up to somebody. Valentine and Gus were kind of like Fred and George Weasley, Ron's brothers from Harry Potter because they had the same kind of spunk and they were really funny. One of my favorite parts was when Valentine was feeding Lightning the Turtle and then Bernard said something along the lines of, "Could you please start listening to me now?" And then Valentine said "It's his lunch time!" I thought that was very funny because he's feeding a turtle in the middle of an important speech. It shows you that Valentine is loyal to animals and he doesn't like Bernard--at least not very much.
I really liked the scene at the end when Thomasina and Septimus start dancing a waltz and it is right before something bad is going to happen. It is just really touching; it was very interesting and sad, but awesome too because you know that one of the characters' last moments was a happy one. The people from our time period are also waltzing at the exact same time. It was interesting because it feels like you are in both time periods at the same time. It is like time machines, only better. I think Tom Stoppard put these two different time periods in the exact same scene together to tell us that Jane Austen's time period was not very different from ours. The different time periods both have waltzing, the same kinds of math, and love. And I got to dance in it. At the end they chose me to come up and dance with Gus, and it was awesomely fun. I think the director, Jessica Hutchinson, wanted the audience to know they were also in the show. You aren't just watching. You are a character in the show.
People who would like the show are people that like poetry, math, and embracing meat. Arcadia feels like you are actually time-traveling. When you feel like you are time-traveling, it is because you have a good director and good actors. People should go see this show because it is fun, makes you want to learn more things, and is bittersweet.
Photos: Tom McGrath
Once upon a time I went to a show and it was called A Brown Bear, A Moon, and A Caterpillar. And it was about three different books that Eric Carle made. In this one it was: The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me, and Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? Most of his books are board books, but I still like them. Everybody still likes them even if they are aimed for younger kids. This show is also aimed at younger kids, but I still liked it a lot. They kind of made it like one of Eric Carle's own books. And parents should see it as well, and almost everybody would like it. If you are evil, then you would not like this show at all because it is super fun and if you are evil you usually don't like fun things. Evil people usually have a very bad sense of humor; actually, they have terrible sense of humor.
This show is all puppets; there are no humans in it. Well there are puppet humans, but there are no actual humans that you can see. You cannot see the puppeteers because 1) They have very good lighting in this theater, and 2) they have very big puppets that hide them or they are behind a curtain or something, and 3) they are dressed all in black. They even have black masks on. Then you feel like you are actually seeing pictures move and come alive because you cannot see anybody holding on to the puppets or having their hands inside them or strings. The kids thought it was funny and awesome and cool that the Caterpillar had come to life.
This play you can take a baby to, because it is a "no-shushing play," and "no-shushing play" means you have to turn off your cell phones but you can talk during the show. It is a good thing to have a show you can take babies to because then babies don't feel left out. A baby would sometimes sleep through it but sometimes be intrigued by this Bear and this Caterpillar and this Moon trying to say something about "we are real" to you. Babies really like bright colors, and Eric Carle uses very bright colors, so babies would like this show.
I really liked The Hungry Caterpillar story because it was really funny and I thought it had cool elements to it. One of my favorite parts that was funny was when the Caterpillar would kick his food away and it would just go tumbling away. Some of the cool elements were the Caterpillar was made with foam like from couches and chairs that you might be sitting on while you are reading this. It enabled them to make it slink around like an actual caterpillar. The chrysalis, it unravels slowly around the Caterpillar, then it comes out as an enormous, big-as-the-stage beautiful butterfly. The food was eaten; so he would slide and slide until he got to some food, and he would put his head by some fruit, and a door would open which he would slide through. The Caterpillar didn't talk to you, there was just a voice that would tell the story. The story was exactly like the book. It wasn't an adaptation, it was an adapt-everything. An adapt-everything is like an adaptation only everything is exactly like everything. It was amazingly true to the book, only it was a play because the puppets moved around.
I thought Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? was really cool. I thought it was really cool because it had so many puppets in it. It wasn't very much like The Very Hungry Caterpillar because 1) the Very Hungry Caterpillar was smaller than all the puppets in the Brown Bear piece, 2) you could see the puppeteers more because they didn't have anything to hide behind. There was one similar thing; all of the puppets were rod puppets. I really like puppets and to see the puppets come alive. I really liked the Purple Cat because it was so jazzy. I even got a pin of it afterwards--that's how much I liked the Purple Cat puppet. It was true to Eric Carle's design in a way that is fun and exciting. I really liked the White Dog because it seemed to light up because it was so white and they were putting ultraviolet light on it. It lit up so brightly that it was really intriguing. I really liked the Frog because it was so toad-ally toad-ally toad-ally cute because it was so tinier than the others. The Brown Bear was about the size of two toddlers, and the Cat was about the size of one toddler, and the Frog was about the size of a baby. They were telling the story of different animals meeting each other and how they react to each other. It is a fun and scientific story because it is trying to say that different kinds of animals get along and different kinds of animals don't get along. For example, the Purple Cat and the White Dog don't really get along at all. The Red Bird and the Yellow Duck got along because they are basically both the exact same species. 
Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me wasn't one of my favorites, but I still liked it. I don't like Eric Carle's designs for humans as much as I like his animals. This one was almost all humans, except for a monster/animal/moon. They also used projections. I thought using projections was a cool idea because it was twinkly--it gave a cool look to it, but I didn't like it as well as the puppets.
I really liked at the end how they would take questions and actually answer them and not just be like "Oh, that's a secret." I went to go and see another show a few days ago, and it was a really good show, but at the end he said, "Just ask me any question about the show, and I can answer it for you." But then he wouldn't answer some of the kids' questions. He would just say "That's a secret!" It is useful to kids to know how things are done because then when they are older they can make them with their children or with their mom or their dad. It doesn't take away the pizzazz of the story because if puppets are real-looking and they don't seem fake then you will imagine that they are actually real even when you know they are not.
People that would like this show are people that like bright colors, no-shushing plays, and Eric Carle. This show is fun, pretty, and terrific. I think this show should be for ages babies and up. I think people should go with at least one kid or baby because that makes the show more fun because then you get to see somebody enjoy it a lot and having lots and lots and lots of fun.
Photos: Mermaid Theatre of Nova Scotia
Once upon a time I went to a show and it was called After the Revolution. It was about a law student named Emma (Christine Stulik) who had just graduated and her grandpa was a spy but her father Ben (Mick Weber) didn't tell her that, so she was angry at him. It is a comedy but a romance but a drama because it has so many different emotions. Sometimes it is a romance with a boyfriend (Marvin Quijada) and sometimes there is a funny old person. And sometimes it is a daughter not talking to her father who is trying to explain. And sometimes it is a girl talking to her sister who is gay (Dana Black). I think they put all these different kinds of emotions in it because it will have different impacts on different people. For example, somebody could not like comedy, but then they would have the romance and the drama instead and they would like that and backwards. If you like happy happy sing a merry song, you will not like this play. But if you like drama a lot you will really like this, which I double do. If you are a grown up, it will make you remember what it was like being young. It is fun and exciting; and you are new in the world, and you are learning new things, and you get hyped up about things that your parents didn't tell you before. And if you are young, it will make you know what is going to happen in the future; you are going to think differently and fight for things differently.
I thought that the first scene with Monty (Mike Nussbaum) was funny. I liked how he wanted to go on a date with Emma's step-grandmother, Vera (MaryAnn Thebus). I call her her step-grandmother because she is her father's step-mother. They way Vera said "I'm not going to go on a date with you" was "I don't think so" but she wasn't there, Monty was just telling Emma about it. It is kind of strange to say I want to go on a date with your grandmother to somebody when they are talking about business. The business is to help people who want to make the world a better place who are arrested for it get out of jail. Monty wants to make the world a better place for him by going on a date with Emma's grandmother. But he also wants to give all his money to the Joe foundation. Joe is Emma's spy grandpa. They didn't know that he was a spy when they made the foundation.
There was a part that I liked where the uncle (Phil Ridarelli) was talking to the father and he said "Where's Emma?" And then the stepmother (Tasha Anne James) comes in and says "She went out to get some fresh air. " And then the uncle said, "Getting some fresh air for my kids means going out and smoking." And then the parents say together "Emma doesn't smoke." But she does. I think it is important to the play because Emma is lying. She does smoke. And the father is lying to her by saying "Grandpa was loyal to his country." They think that it will be better for the other person if they don't know about it. It isn't better; it is worse because people don't like it when somebody lies to you about your family. Like if your grandma says your grandpa worked in a candy factory when he actually worked in a blacksmith's shop. Then you would get your hopes up that he could make candy, but all he could really do is repair and melt metal.
I liked the scene with the sister Jess (Dana Black) where she told Emma that the father had told her that grandpa was a spy four years ago. I really liked how Emma was so surprised and how the sister was like, "not a big deal" because she is like somebody who believes that everything is just cool and relaxing. She was a drug addict and she took bad drugs and that is not good because that could get you arrested. Like if you sell them. If you really like drugs and you open up a store, you could get arrested. She could ruin the foundation by people figuring out her sister is a drug addict. They only defend people who mean well, but her sister didn't mean well. She just took drugs because she thought they were fun. But they are not. At all. Some drugs can even kill you. You do still like her because she seems like a nice sister when she's not taking drugs, but she is also a little mean to her community.
I thought the scene at the end was confusing because why would the end of the play have such a weird line at the end, which was Vera saying "I still think you should change it." The lights went out and I thought," it must be the beginning of another scene." But it wasn't, which was strange. Maybe the director (Kimberly Senior) and the playwright (Amy Herzog) want it to be like one of those fairy tale books where you get to choose the ending. You would be choosing between "She gets back her boyfriend and everything is great and good and her sister doesn't go back to drugs at all and Monty gets to go on a date with Vera and the foundation keeps its name and Ben and Emma make up" and the bad ending is "Her sister goes back to drugs and Emma and Ben still don't like each other very much and her boyfriend never comes back to her and Monty and Vera never get to go on a date." I always go with the good ending.
People who would like this show are people that like law school, history, and people named Monty going on dates. I don't think kids would enjoy this as much as grownups, so I think grownups should mostly see it. I think people should see it because it is fun and gives you a peek into history.
Photo: Elissa Shortridge
Once upon a time I went to a show and it was called Weirdos Presents: Strange Tales. It was about this old puppet man in a hospital (Sherman Edwards) who didn't want to go to bed, and this nurse (Tahnee Lacey) came in and she would say, "Go to bed. You should." But he wanted to stay up all night and eat cheese. At least that is what is what he told her. I suspect he just wanted to stay up; I'm not sure about the cheese part. And then he says, "I'll just tell you one short, little story. " But it turns into like an hour-long story when the nurse wants it to be like three minutes. So that is totally not like one very short story like he says. He is telling all these different stories, all in one. I'm going to make an estimate: it turns into about twelve stories. I liked that they made it more unusual by making it not like a child sitting on their grandfather's knee and him being like "I'm going to tell you a story, little girl." But instead they made an old guy telling a nurse who is a grown woman. And he is like in a hospital because he is weird--like that whole cheese thing. This is very gratifying because it is unusual and it gives you an idea that it is going to be a weird and cool show.
I think the designs of the puppets are terrific. Some of my favorites were Hansel and Gretel, Kernel the Colonel and the old man puppet--I think it looked a lot like a Muppet. There were all different kinds of puppets: finger puppets, hand puppets, and rod puppets.
I liked the scene where Hansel and Gretel were going to be cooked into a children stew by an evil witch (Colleen Breen). I liked the puppets of Hansel and Gretel. They didn't look like you'd imagine Hansel and Gretel; they looked like alien Hansel and Gretel. They were blue and pink which is not usually what the color of their skin is and they had eyes on top of their heads, like Elmo's. I thought it was funny because it had funny weird things like the witch dropping the keys right in front of the cage and the witch immediately taking the cage off Hansel and Gretel so they could totally get out. I thought that was really funny because the witch is not usually as clueless. Hansel said, when they were like fighting, "It's, like, candy, man! You aren't going to expect children to come up and eat it?!" I thought that was really hilarious because he has a point. You should expect people to come up and eat your house when it is made out of delicious candies. If I were Hansel and Gretel, I would go straight for the tootsie rolls, chocolate lollipops, and happy hippos.
I though the scene with the evil, pie-gangster mice was fun. Little Red Riding Hood (Tahnee Lacey) had some pies that she was taking to her grandmother. And that is the main plot of the story. So she passed some mice, and they asked her, "What are you doing?" And she said, "I am bringing some pies to my grandma. And then they said, "Oh pies? Pies! Pies!" And then the king of all mice (Sherman Edwards) came out and was like "Pies! Give us your pies!" And then a very muscular Pied Piper (Colleen Breen) came and was like, "I'll save you!" But then he got swallowed by the evil gangster mice, and that wasn't very pleasant. It was funny because the Pied Piper was being defeated by miniscule mice.
I really liked the scene with the prince (Sherman Edwards) and Little Red Riding Hood. It was basically like Beauty and the Beast, only backward. That was a beast that wants to turn into a prince, and this was a prince that wants to turn into a beast. She's like, "Oh, Hi," and then the Prince says "Hi" in a glum manner. So then she's like "What's wrong?" And he says, "I used to be a handsome monster, and now I am an ugly prince." And then she says, "You are not that ugly. I've been looking at you, and I actually think you are pretty handsome." The he says, "I just have to be kissed by a beautiful girl and I will change back." And then she kisses him. And then he comes out as a weird-looking, eight-eyed monster. And then she says, "That was totally worth it!" I really liked that it was funny and had to do with romance. I like romantic plays and movies and stuff. Even though it wasn't very romantic, I still think it is a romantic thing to kiss someone.
In the scene where Colonel Kernel was warning his friend (Aaron Sjoholm) that there was a wolf trying to eat him, the Wolf (Ben Palin) would make totally unbelievably not disguise-y disguises. For example, he made himself look like a rain cloud, a hippie, and a 1920s newsboy. So the newsboy would say, "Great Depression coming up! Great Depression coming up!' And Colonel Kernel's friend would say, "That's a while later, but I'll take your paper!" I think it is funny because why would a 1920s newsboy be there anyway? Like, what the what? So when the Colonel was like, "No! The wolf is really there," the friend was like "Have you ever heard the story of the boy who cried wolf?" And then the Colonel was like, "Yeah. And when all the townspeople kept coming back, the wolf wasn't there." And then his friend is like "Exactly" and then he left. And then the Colonel said, "Now it is not like the boy who cried wolf at all because you just left. And you're not a townsperson!"
I thought the scene with the grandpa and the Wolf was funny. The grandpa was giving the wolf, who was in the grandma's outfit, gifts. There was a razor because the grandpa says, "You know, I am giving you this razor because you look a little bit like a wolf." So he got so-called "her" some flowers that she was supposed to stick in her nostrils, which is totally ridonkulous. He's saying that because he's doing his version of the scene where Little Red Riding Hood says, "Oh, Grandma, what a big nose you have!" So then he went into this whole thing about him taking naps in her nostrils. I think it is funny because the grandpa is a puppet and the grandma (Colleen Breen) is an actual lady. And so it could be like he actually had naps in her nostrils because he is smaller than a grown human.
People who would like this show are people who like puppets, comedies, and eating cheese. I think this show is fun, imaginative, and cool. I think this show should be for ages 3 and up. Older kids will like it still because it is funny. If you have a sense of humor, you will double like it. People should see this show because it is totally rad.
Once upon a time I went to a dance show, and it was called Remember The...(Alamo). It was about the Alamo and kids learning about it in school. I think the characters lived in Texas because I think this takes place in Texas. It felt more real than if you just read a book and saw pictures about The Alamo. The Alamo was a big fight that happened because both of these two countries, the United States and Mexico, wanted Texas because it was a big state. One of the biggest, actually, in America. I did not know anything about the Alamo, but I thought "this seems cool," so I went to watch it and it was very interesting. It makes you want to know more about the Alamo and who were the people who fought in it. I think I realized when I went to the show that there are lots of ways to tell the same historical stories. What I already knew was that fictional stories can have more than one way to be told. For example, in The Little Mermaid, there are two ways to tell her story. The first one, the way it was written, is she kills herself of a broken heart and turns into a clump of dried up seaweed, which I don't think the little kids would like. But then Walt Disney's company changed the story so that she goes and marries the prince she want to marry.
When I got into the theater, I was like, "Wow! I did not know it would be like this because I thought the dancers would enter, but they didn't. They were already on stage playing their characters. The set was three screens where videos would come up. And there were four different places. There was like a bar or like a house--I don't know which. And there was also a school. And there was also like a living room that had a tv that was on. And there was also a desk that was tilted a little bit. You get to walk around, but lots of people didn't. I don't know why, because that is a lot of fun: getting to move around during a play and getting to interact with the characters.
I really liked how they used rock songs like a song about Davy Crockett that goes like this: "Davy Crockett. What you got in your pocket?" They also used slow sad songs like the one about Tumbleweeds. And it goes like this: "And the tumblin' tumbleweeds." They also used violin songs, which were actually played by a violinist in the show. And there was also a Johnny Cash song, and he is one of my favorite singers, so I really liked that one. And it went like this, "Hey, Santy Anna, we're killing your soldiers below, so that everybody will remember the Alamo." Using all these different songs made you feel like you were in all these different time periods. And that I meant as a compliment because that is a good thing because people are still learning about the Alamo. The show is about the Alamo and learning about the Alamo which has happened for many years.
I really liked the kind of dance that the kids did when they were pretending to be soldiers. They were pretending to be kids who were learning about the Alamo and were excited about the Alamo. They would make guns with their fingers and their feet. That was awesome. And when they would use their feet I just thought that was really creative because I have never seen anybody use their feet as a gun before. I thought it was cool how the kids pretended to die in a awesome battle-y sort of way. I don't like battles, but I think it is interesting to learn about them so then you won't fight about the stupid things that they fight about--like countries that somebody had and then somebody takes their country. It also made me scared and I felt like I was in an actual battle because they didn't always act in a kiddy way, they sometimes acted in a scary, "I'm going to kill this person" way.
When they did "Davy Crockett, what you got in your pocket?" then they would dance in like a rock and roll but jazzy sort of way. I just thought that was a good way to express their emotions about Davy Crockett. I think they thought he was a hero because he went on some adventures, which I haven't heard about yet, but I suspect they are really cool if they liked them that much. They would slide on to one knee with the other one behind them, and then they would shake their heads up and down in a yes position, and that move kind of showed me they were saying, "You are important to us; you are a hero." I think people like that did exist sort of. But I don't think it was true that Davy Crockett killed a bear when he was only three.
There was this cool game that they played that went like this: "Jim Bowie! Jim Bowie!" and different people would go into the center and say what they thought he was. And then people would act out what they just said: "Jim Bowie was a very brave man!" or "Jim Bowie was a very calm man." And then they would say "Jim Bowie! Jim Bowie!" again and someone else would go. And so on. That told me that they also thought that he was a brave and awesome and cool person. He did lots of other heroic things, but at the Alamo he was sick in bed. He fought back for himself, which anyone would do, but he didn't fight for any other person. It makes you think he was a heroic person, but he did things that were not for his country. He died in bed sick and not in the battle, which is not as heroic as other people who are not as famous were.
There was a part where somebody was trying to get through all these people and then she would say: "Right, left, slither through" and stuff like that. And then somebody after they had had a turn would go in front until they got to the wall. Then she would have to fight them. They were trying to show you how people still study Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett and try to fight like them. It looked very hard to crawl through like six people who kept getting in front of you again and again and again and again.
I think this show should be for ages 7 and up because of the dying. I think people should go see this if they want to learn about the Alamo because it is a good start for younger kids to begin on learning about the Alamo. People who would like this show are people who like battles, dancing, and Davy Crockett. I think this show is a very awesome one because it teaches you lots of things that you have not even learned yet when you are my age and it is cool and scary. Older people should see it because it makes them remember...the Alamo.
I really liked the Queen of Hearts (Alison Black) because she had spunk. I liked that person a lot because she seemed like she knew what she was doing and she was having a lot of fun working on this project. I liked the part when she said, "This croquet match is going to be so much fun because I will have a trial to look forward to" because people usually aren't excited about trials, but she is because she gets to meet her enemy.
I thought the audience participation was cool. I liked the audience participation because it was fun for kids and can be even fun for grownups. They invited me up as a witness and I was a Narwhal, which is an endangered species of sea mammal that has a very odd horn. I thought it was a good idea to have that participation because it made the audience feel like they had done something cool and they had gotten to be a witness or on the jury or a guest in the tea party. I thought the people in the trial scene did a good job handling the kids. The Mad Hatter (Brian Finlay) and the March Hare (Travis Barnhart) also did a good job handling the kids when they had the tea party and they were like "change seats! change seats!" When I was there, there was a little girl who played a duck, and the only thing she ever said was "quack quack quack," and it was so adorable.
In the croquet scene, they were using hedgehogs as croquet balls. The hedgehogs were like rolling technology, remote-control cars with fur and a nose and eyes. I liked the hedgehogs because they were more creative than just using regular balls or stuffed animals. And I also thought the Caterpillar's (Tahnee Lacey) costume was creative. It was great because she had like a caterpillar's tail wrapped around her and antennae. I thought it was cool that they put the Caterpillar scene and the mushroom out in the audience.
Expensivo was a pretty bad idea just because it is hard to make a bad guy seem not cheesy in a show that is for kids. Little kids like cheesy things, like the Care Bears and Dora the Explorer. But older kids think those are bad and cheesy things, unless they are done by The House Theatre. I used to think Dora the Explorer was amazing, but now I think it is garbage. I would like to have seen Expensivo actually trying to hurt somebody in a physical way--then this show would have been much better. Then this show would have been scary and intense and awesome.
I was hoping to see something that was kind to the book, generous to the author, and didn't make fun of the book. Then when I walked out of the theater, I wasn't saying, "I know lots of things about Alice in Wonderland now and I understand it lots better." I was saying, "I knew that before." The thing that they did well was that they didn't say, let's add in all these things that are not at all in the book.
People who would like this show are people who like audience participation and hedgehogs. I think that the ages that would enjoy this the most are younger kids because it has things that littler kids would be more interested in--like villains trying to destroy fairy tales.
Photos: John Olson
