By CHRISTINA MUNSTER, Student Writer
Paper mache, paint, foam and burlap, covered the stage, creating a fantasyland.
32 students have been working to prepare for one of the biggest productions of the year.
Together with Kimberly Weast, Northwestern Theatre students are entertaining the largest crowd of the year; 1530 children from 11 schools around the area for the Children’s Production play. The Farthest school Goodwell, Oklahoma. Ages will range from pre-K-7th grade.
This year’s story: a computer virus gets into a computer and messes up all the fairy tale stories and puts them in the wrong place. Tori Hurley, a Speech and Theatre major junior, said, “How could we wow them? It’s quite a job itself.” Hurley is one of the main set designers, along with Speech and Theatre major senior Mickey Jordan on the production. With two 16 by 3 foot diameter trees and using different painting techniques the set is not only a forest, but also a forest set in a Dell computer screen. “Its very Hans Christian Anderson meets Tales of the Vienna Woods.” said Jordan.
There are 19 student actors in all, with 6 characters with prosthetics that resemble what would be worn in the movies. One of the leads in the play, Taylor Morris, a senior majoring in Mass Communication said, “This is my most favorite show. Children are the most honest audience. We try to run through the audience to get the kids attention. Shows how fast theatre is.”
The Children’s production will go on November 17th and 18th at 10 am and 1 pm for the children and will not be open to the public. However, Saturday the 19th, at 2 pm for $1.25 there is a special showing to the public.
Freshmen Sports and Physical Therapy major and actor in the play, Nicholas Cochran said, “This is all for the kid, but we hope a lot come and watch we’ve worked really hard to put this off.”