Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, April 19, 1993 TAG: 9304200032
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: NF-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: WENDI GIBSON RICHERT NEWSFUN WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
That's what this children's play is all about.
"The Velveteen Rabbit," Mill Mountain Theatre's spring children's production, trades the flowery language for some hip-hop, the mediocre for some pizzazz, the adults for some kids.
Indeed, only four folks in the entire cast are adults. That leaves 27 kids claiming the roles of The Little Boy, his Aunt Sally/the Fairy, a Toy Boat, Jack in the Box, four Building Blocks, a Clown, Spinning Top, Babydoll, Fire Truck, Lion, Mouse, seven Tin Soldiers, rabbits Mugsy, Bugsy and Hugsy, plus three more bunnies.
Give these kids a few stage directions and lessons in choreography, and by Thursday's opening night, folks will get a full-fledged production complete with bright lights and giant stage props.
But this production - like Mill Mountain's other Main Stage plays - hasn't come together overnight. Four-hour rehearsals have been going on most every day for four weeks. And on evenings when many kids are doing homework or playing outside, the "Velveteen Rabbit" kids have waited in the wings for their cue to enter the stage. Then they've gone home only to read and reread their lines, struggling to memorize them before the big night.
Kianna "Kia" Price is one of those kids. She plays a bunny - one of the bunnies who exclaims "Heeeaaavy" upon discovering the sleeping Velveteen Rabbit in the forest.
Price is a ninth-grader at Patrick Henry High School and has acted in school, church and other Mill Mountain productions since she was in the fifth grade. She's also a member of the Mill Mountain Youth Ensemble, an instructional theater program for kids 12-18. It concentrates on rehearsal and performance techniques and is taught by theater professionals.
Kia says she doesn't get very nervous when she performs. "I think my mom was more nervous than me," she says of trying out for this production.
About 75-100 kids auditioned for "The Velveteen Rabbit" says Gena Kepley, Mill Mountain's associate marketing director. They had to compete against one another by singing "My Country Tis Of Thee" and reciting a poem before a panel of judges.
Teresa Maguire, an eighth-grader at Andrew Lewis Middle School, learned she'd made the cast about a week after the auditions. Although she's been in about five plays before - including one staged at a theater camp she attended in Massachusetts where she used to live - Teresa says she was "real nervous" at this audition.
Teresa had more than nerves to deal with on tryout day, though. Because she has cerebral palsy, she must walk with a walker. It doesn't affect her ability to act.
"In all the plays that I've been to, they haven't made an issue of me not being able to walk. They've always been able to not make me having cerebral palsy an issue - it never seemed to matter."
In this production, it doesn't matter either. Teresa plays a toy boat. Her boxy costume will fit over her and her walker, and she'll still be able move around the stage. Teresa says she thinks it's great that handicapped folks can participate in the theater. "I want people like me to see they can do this."
The 27 kids playing in the "Velveteen Rabbit" range from fifth-graders to juniors in high school. About half of them have acted in Mill Mountain Theatre or in school and community plays before. And two of those are members of the Mill Mountain Theatre Youth Ensemble.
Not that acting is entirely easy for everyone. In one two-hour stretch of rehearsal, the actors will repeat - over and over again - the same 10 lines while the director constantly refines the actor's movements that go with those lines.
When the long practices are finally put together into a one-hour play, though, the time spent away from family becomes worth it. "I've enjoyed it so far," says Julia Wilsie, a fifth-grader who plays a hip-hop bunny with seventh-grader Lauren Moore.
Continues Julia, "It takes a lot of hard work . . . and at the end, you know it's going to be a lot of fun. It's going to be really fun."
VELVETEEN RABBIT": Mill Mountain Theatre Main Stage: April 22-25 April 29-May 2, call for times, Mill Mountain Theatre, downtown Roanoke. (The May 2 performance is signed for the hearing impaired.) Annual children's musical. $6, $3 children. 342-5740.
by CNB