St. Albert Children's Theatre celebrates 35 years of play

This is St. Albert Children’s Theatre 35th spin around the carousel revealing an impressive life span for any company, let alone one riding the up and down world of youth theatre.

Artistic director Janice Flower, who first obtained a position with children’s theatre as music director in 1985, has sculpted the program for over three decades into a sophisticated model renowned for graduating community leaders.

At this point, the company offers an extensive array of classes and programs, youth development services, and two major showcase productions at Christmas and during the International Children’s Festival.

As important as it is to be supportive of young talent, there are standards of excellence that everyone adheres to. Teachers and students are on an equal footing working together on discipline, commitment, empathy, confidence building and time management.

Traditionally, the company’s winter production is a high-energy musical mounted with stunning sets and costumes, slick choreography and catchy songs – an all around explosion of colour and sound.

In celebration of the troupe’s landmark year, Flower is switching things up with a double bill of two Christmas adaptations. A Seussified Christmas Carol and The Nutcracker Sings! run Nov. 24 to Dec. 5 at the Arden Theatre.

While working two productions each night requires a great deal of focus from the actors, there are benefits.

“It gives more kids an opportunity for bigger roles. Everybody has their moment,” said choreographer Jackie Pooke. “We’re on the verge of fantastic. The kids have really taken on the challenge.

Flower veered into double bill territory after the one-act Nutcracker sat on her desk for some time.

“It’s a funny script, but I didn’t feel as if there was enough there. I poked around and I found A Seussified Christmas Carol. The entire show is rhyming couplets,” said Flower.

The only song in the 37-minute long Seussified is It’s Almost Time for the Holidays, a joyful, holiday number Flower composed to launch the festivities.

“This is so interesting and so different. It will be so good or so bad,” laughs Flower, a director eager to face fresh challenges.

Starting the evening is Seussified, a whimsical mash-up of Dickens’ beloved Christmas story complete with Scrooge, three Ghosts and Dr. Seuss characters such as Timmy Loo Whoo and Bed-Head Fred.

After some quick costume changes, the 30 actors from ages eight to 18 years, reappear on stage in The Nutcracker Sings, a musical comedy based on Tchaikovsky’s classic ballet. In this version Clara shrinks in size and together with the Nutcracker must battle a villainous Mouse Queen intent on wrecking Christmas.

While A Seussified Christmas Carol’s stands out for its rhyming couplets, The Nutcracker features a fully orchestrated score made up from original songs as well as songs adapted from Tchaikovsky’s famous themes.

Nutcracker’s 65-minute adventure is packed with nine songs, a seemingly easy contribution.

“But the pace is very fast and with 30 kids, it’s very challenging. But it’s thrilling to hear,” said music director Rachel Bowron.

One tune Bowron predicts will be a hit with audiences is You, Me and the Kids sung by two cockroach parents, a Vaudeville-style act mimicking the late comedy team George Burns and Gracie Allen.

Although St. Albert Children’s Theatre productions always look like a million dollars, the money-strapped world of non-profit theatre demands creative thinking.

Costume and set designer Marissa Kochanski, who grew up in Edson wanting to save the rainforest, has turned thriftiness and recycling into a fine art.

If this year’s set looks vaguely familiar, it’s because she designed it for the 2016 Free Will Shakespeare Festival’s Romeo and Juliet and Love’s Labour’s Lost in June.

After the classical set completes its children’s theatre run, it will once again be shipped to Victoria School for the Arts for a third production.

“I want to give people a bang for their buck,” said the cost-conscious Kochanski.

Transported from storage after it was used at Hawrelak Park’s Amphitheatre, the massive 40 feet wide and 16 feet high set is squeezed onto the Arden stage fitting from wing to wing.

Originally built to showcase two Shakespearean productions in repertory, it sports three arches, numerous levels and panels that slide in and out to create different looks. Tweaking the façade, Kochanski has created a stony faux textured surface for Seussified and a lighter, fancier surface for Nutcracker’s ballroom.

“The three arches with the balcony on top makes beautiful composition and the central unit easily slides downstage.”

While the set only required a simple facelift, costumes have consumed most of Kochanski’s time. On average each actor plays three roles.

When you compute the numbers, that’s about 100 costumes and props that have been borrowed from the theatre company’s private stock, purchased at thrift stores such as Lo-Se-Ca or made from scratch.

And it’s the costumes that may elicit a few giggles. In Seussified, the Ghost of Christmas Present comes gift-wrapped. The Ghost of Christmas Past is an ’80s rocker chick and the Ghost of Christmas Future is a silver blob.

Over in Nutcracker, the regal Queen Mouse is masked as the epitome of elegance.

“There’s yards and yards of pink lace with a train.”

On the other hand, Clara wears a frothy, diaphanous cream dress with a pink sash pulled from storage, and the Nutcracker is dressed in a black coat with gold trim repurposed from donated marching band uniforms.

“I had a base for a hat and put a pompom on it.”

Everyone from actor to designers to tech crew has contributed a large chunk of time to make this year’s offering professional and entertaining.

As Bowron puts it, “It’s completely family friendly. It’s warm, filled with Christmas spirit. It’s stories you might know and get to revisit in a new way. It’s a funny, warm beautiful way to get into the Christmas spirit.”