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CHILD ACTORS ACCEPT CHALLENGE TO PORTRAY ORPHANS IN 'OLIVER!'
Dennis Fallon, for the CDT
If you are sitting at home "considering the situation" of what to do this weekend, "consider yourself" invited to a classic musical of adventure, singing and dancing. If you don't have money to buy a ticket "you've got to pick a pocket or two," since you'll want to "do anything" to see this show. It's a story of a "boy for sale," and, if you're lucky, you may find out "where is love." But if you go, don't bring any "food, glorious food," because you can get snacks at the theater. All ham-fisted puns aside, a community theater production of epic proportions is coming our way with Singing Onstage's version of the Broadway classic, "Oliver!" Featuring a cast of 50 adults |
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| and children (not counting a full orchestra and a large backstage crew), the musical brings together the best actors, dancers and singers from the area for a night of big-city theater in our little Happy Valley. "We are getting the very best kids who can act, sing and move," show director Richard Biever said. "We've got a really great group of kids." Based of Dickens' classic "Oliver Twist," "Oliver!" tells the story of a poor orphan's adventures throughout Victorian London, eventually thrust into a life of pickpocketing where he meets a host of unsavory and tuneful characters. "Everybody knows this play. It is not all roses," Biever said. "There are these light and cheery songs, but it is Dickens, and that is what makes us all excited about the show -- it is not just a light evening; this play has some depth to it." The bulk of that depth falls on some pretty small shoulders. Pierce Guillory, the 14-year-old playing Oliver in the show, is our dirty-faced tour guide through the dark and twisted streets of London. "Oliver is more of an innocent child who is growing up in a hardened society at that time when people looked down on poor people," Guillory said. "I try to play him as a kid who trusts everyone that he finds." Balancing out Guillory's youthful vigor is Travis DiCastro as the wily king of thieves, Fagin. "Fagin is a fun role," DiCastro said. "He is such a well known character. There are so few parts for men in their 50s. It is a terrific comic character. In the original Dickens tale and the Broadway production, Fagin has a dark side to his character. But this production is very family oriented. I have tried to eschew any of the darkness and keep the generosity and spirit of Fagin for the Singing Onstage production of the show." DiCastro, who heads the stage management department at Penn State and has decades of stage experience, returns under the spotlight as an actor after years running shows from behind the curtain. Filled with a cast of more than two dozen children and giant sing-alongs, "Oliver!" is full of challenging roles for kids. "The concentration issues and the ability to stick with it can be drawbacks," Biever said. "The rehearsal process can be an uphill climb because it takes a while before you see the fruits of your labor. There is a lot of hard work to get the product. You can't really ex plain the hard work. The kids just have to go through the process of hard work, and then they see it. Then they forget how hard it was, so the next show they do they are just as impatient as they were the first time." |
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