Just for kids

Laura Wilson - NewsPress

July 13, 2008 12:56 am

— For 12 years, Rana McCoy has taught young area musicians, singers and actors in an operetta workshop and directed their summer performance at Stillwater Public Library.
This year’s crop of participants will present their work Tuesday during the library’s summer reading program. Performances of “A Thoroughly Modern Rapunzel” will be at 10 a.m., 1:30 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. in the library’s auditorium. The performances are free.
In this updated version of “Rapunzel,” her mother craves pizza, the witch (Mesmerelda) owns a pizza cafe, and Rapunzel is kept in a tall apartment building instead of a tower.
Twenty-seven children are performing in the musical, adapted by McCoy from a story by Jude Mandell. Many have never participated in theater before, McCoy said, and they only meet seven times.
“It’s definitely a challenge on all ends,” she said. “It’s really fun to watch them grow. That’s why I do it. I enjoy the process.”
Most of her crew — high school and university students — are former cast members who wanted to stay involved as they grew too old to be in the show. The Children’s Operetta Workshop is open only to children who have just completed second through seventh grades.
“You have to have a cut-off. By the end of the second grade, they can read well enough that they can handle their own parts,” McCoy said, explaining why she doesn’t open the workshop to younger children.
She started the Children’s Operetta Workshop after attending a piano teachers convention in Dallas, Texas. The woman in charge of the convention, McCoy said, also wrote operettas for summer performances.
Stillwater didn’t have opportunity at that time for younger children to participate in theater, she said, so she approached children’s librarian Sue Busch. Busch said she’d always wanted to do something like this, so McCoy began a search for sponsors that would allow the program to be free for the children.
This year’s cast includes students from Stillwater, Cushing, Glencoe, Ripley and Hominy. Cast members include Rachel Peek, Rapunzel; Madison Willman, Young Rapunzel; Matthew Nieman, Dad; Alison Denny, Mom; Edyn Rolls, Mesmerelda; Noah Schneider, Doug Toto; Abigail Blose, Storyteller; Samantha Moore, Child; Hunter Hawks, Uncle Buck; Hayden Hawks, Boy 1; Corbin Treadwell, Boy 2; and Jalen Alexander, Commercial Spokesman.
The Pizza Delivery Dancers are played by Meghan Scott, Avery Willman, Lindsay Crone, Rebekah Peek, Evan Rolls, Ericka Stevenson, Kelsey Brown and Katie Philips. Playing Tessa the “Hairdressa” and the Bobby Pins, who sing “The Curling Iron Blues,” are Alexis Terry, Mason Pitts, Casey Denny, April Pruit, Allison Jaeger, Typanga Patterson and Carolina Ritchey.
Diane Dean is McCoy’s assistant. She is the librarian at Highland Park Elementary, McCoy said, and has been her assistant and stage manager for all 12 years. Members of the stage crew are Kale McCoy, Kayley McCoy, Lauren Knori, Megan Smith and T. Mike Walker.
Choreography is by Rachel Rickman and Molly Fitzgerald, lights are by Bryan Delahoussaye, set design is by Liz Tabish and artwork is by Madison Willman.

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