Children's Theater...The Pirates of Penzance, June 26

The Pirates of Penzance was the second presentation of the Troy Recreation Department's children's summer theater program. The Troy Civic Theatre provides the venue and also allowed the group access to their costume collection. However, many of the players with the help of their parents and others found their own costumes. The actors and actresses were fifth through ninth graders. Two older students, Austin and Robert, participated  as  policemen  and  members of the chorus.  Sonja Hyer, Rebecca O'Brien, and Katie Swank directed.
Sonja reminds the audience to turn off cell phones and gives other announcements such as when the players can pick up their shirts like the one she is wearing. All the players' names are listed on the back.

As the pirates listen, the pirate king sings of the joys of being a pirate.

Ruth, Fredric's old nurse, thinks she sees a ship the pirates can capture and the pirates complain that the sailors will probably all be orphans so they won't get any booty anyway. They never take booty from orphans.

The Major General's daughters sing "O'er Rocky Mountain".

After the daughters take pity on Fredric, he asks Mabel to marry him. The daughters consider the question.

The Major General sings, "I am a major general."

The Major General talks with his daughters.

The Pirate King and the Major General confront one another. The Major General tells the pirate he is an orphan.

The daughters console the Major General in the graveyard.

The policemen march in and their police sergeant gives them their orders.

They are not happy with their policemen's lot which is not a happy one.

The difficulty between the pirates and the Major General is resolved and everyone is happy.

The cast takes their final bows.

Eric was in charge of the lights and the music, seeing that both were provided on cue. After the play, he, Austin, and Robert talked. Eric, obligingly looked up and grinned.

Later, Robert told me he understood the play much better this time. The last time he was in it, he was the smallest of the policemen. That was a few years ago.

Children's Theater, June 21...Storyland

The entire play was entertaining, full of humor and lively songs. The children and their parents made the costumes. The action was swift.

 I took 167 photos and still missed some I would have liked to have for this blog. After looking through the photos many times, I  selected 29 which give a brief story line. The theme was folktales from around the world. The first was the lively Tie Me Kangaroo Down from Australia. The 24 actors and actresses sang enthusiastically (and in tune). There are the Koala and the Platypus.

And part of the chorus...

Here are the kangaroos...

And the Wallaby, who loudly insists every time the kangaroos are consulted as part of the kangaroo court jury, "I am not a kangaroo, I'm a WALLABY!" The chorus replies even more loudly..."WHATEVER!!"

Storyland bad guys, wolves and spiders in jail...

Part of the lyrics for the next portion as near as I can remember them..."Little Red Riding Hood, You sure are looking good, just what a big bad wolf wants...."

Little Red Riding Hood explains to Shek and Donkey why the wolves belong in jail.

Then the wolves give their side of the story. They are really misunderstood. Little Red Riding Hood, Grandma and another wolf listen.

Two wolves and Little Red Riding Hood and her grandma await the verdict.

Waiting for the verdict from the kangaroos (and the wallaby).

Happy with the verdict...

The wolves are not happy as Shek sends them back to jail and calls up the next case.

Miss Muffet presents her case, singing, "Spiderwebs".

But one spider insists, "Spiders are good. We brought all the stories to you." (This is an African story.)

And then the actors and actresses present that story. The spider children want the spider father to bring the stories from Nyame.

Nyame won't give up the stories unless he brings her special gifts. He has to capture them and bring them to her. To capture them he has to play tricks on them. These are some of the creatures he brings her.

Finally, he succeeds in bringing the stories down to earth and that is why there are stories in the world today.


The next story was about a frog who drank all the water in the world. The animals want it back. The Wallaby and the Cockatoo speak to him. The Frog refuses.

The animals have a discussion about their problem.

Even the Emu's beautiful dance doesn't make the frog give back the water.

After many difficulties the animals succeed in making the frog give up the water and he admits he was tired of feeling waterlogged.

Now Father Spider becomes Brer Rabbit and the chorus exclaims, "Now THAT is magic...changing a spider into a rabbit."

Brer Rabbit is captured by Brer Fox and Brer Bear. He lies down and laughs and laughs and laughs.

He promises to take Brer Fox and Brer Bear to his laughing place and he does.

And then he explains that this is HIS laughing place and everyone has a special laughing place. The chorus sings and dances to "Everybody Has a Laughing Place".

But Grouch is not happy with the singing and dancing and pops up to tell them so. But the chorus would have nothing to do with Grouch.

They continue  singing Laughing Place and finish off the day's performance with Zip-A-dee-doo-dah.

Charlie Brown...Children's Musical Theater...June 24

On Friday afternoon, I went to the older children's production of Charlie Brown. The children were in sixth grade or above. The play was the children's own version, not an official version.

You will notice that there are two boys dressed as Charlie Brown. Since the children have a lot of lines and songs to memorize in less than two weeks of afternoon rehearsals, usually the parts with the most lines are split between at least two actors. There were two Lucies as well. Each of the eight actors and actresses had about 70 lines of dialogue to memorize as well as learning the words to the songs sung as a group. They also learned dances and acting skills such as blocking. Here are more photos from the performance.

This play was also directed by Sonja Hyer, Rebecca O'Brian, Gretchen Weber, and Grady Hoellrich.