By Lori BODNAR, intern

An array of fairytale characters, including a queen, two henchman, a princess, seven dwarfs, forest creatures, bats, trees, a woodsman, and a special “Magic Mirror,” were found on the stage of Mountain Avenue Elementary School when 64 Mountain Avenue students performed “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” in the auditorium at Rosemont Middle School. The Missoula Children’s Theatre and Mountain Avenue PTA hosted the production, which entertained the audience of over one hundred people. The play, an original adaptation of the classic fairytale, was free to attend.

Missoula Children’s Theatre is a traveling theater company that has been producing plays with kids for over 40 years. It is partially supported through a grant from the National Endowment of the Arts. Just this year, organizers will work with 65,000 children in more than 1,200 communities in all 50 states and even 17 countries.

Every year, in just one week’s time, the Missoula Children’s Theatre teaches students from participating schools a new play. The original play is usually a funny adaptation of classic stories, with original twists, singing, dancing and acting. The play was written by Jim Caron, with dialogue by Jeff Hall. The music was written by Michael McGill and Don Collins and the director of the “Snow White” play was Alice Gittins.

“It is great,” said Gittins of directing the play. “It is nice to work with the kids and to travel.”

There were also student directors, older sixth grade elementary school students, who assist in directing the younger kids in the play and also help out back stage.  Ariah Armen, Molly Necus, Andrew Oh and Chloe Sim were the student assistant directors.

The students has plenty of help in their roles, whether backstage or front of house. Annie Liskow, also from Missoula Children’s Theatre, played Witless the Woodsman. She also worked with the kids. Samya McCoy and Gean Rhodes were volunteer PTA parents who helped with the production. Kimmie Blood, a sophomore high school student, played the piano as accompanist for the play (her two brothers, Charlie and Matthew, were both in the play), Joo Park, Matt Cullen and Lainy Cullen did large format printing and programs for the play. Bryan Goldsworthy was the videographer.

Many siblings performed in the play together. Taking on the role of the seven dwarfs were Allison Curtis, Brent Fortis, Harper Goldsworthy, Maya Hakushi, Paige Jordan, Willie Rhodes and Zora McCoy. Zora’s little sister, Freya McCoy, was one of the queen’s “evil bats.” Pranav Arunachalam, a third grader, was a frog in the play.

“The play was good,” said Pranav. “We had to speak loud and with emotion.”

Pranav’s brother, first grader Vivek Arunachalam, was an “evil bat” that helped the wicked queen.

“It was a lot of fun to be with my brother in the play,” said Vivek.

Lincoln Cullen, another third grader who played a forest animal, said, “It was fun to be in the play. Everyone was really cooperative. My favorite part was when we first came on.”

His sister, sixth grader Sabrina Cullen, has been in a Missoula play seven times – every year since she ws in kindergarten. Sabrina played the queen who also disguised herself as an old peddler woman to give a poison comb and poison apple to Snow White to make her sleep forever.

“It was a lot of fun,” said Sabrina of her role. “I loved my part because I got to have fun with it. The play was great.”

The role of Snow White was played by Christina Park, who was awakened from the “magical sleep” not by a kiss from a handsome prince but by the entire audience participating with the dwarfs and forest creatures. Audience members had to stand up, cross their feet, hold their ears and chant, “Up, up, up!”

The magical mirror was played by Nicole Stephan, and the queen’s hilarious henchman were Matthew Blood and David Boktor. The role of the king was played by Robby Schroeder, who brought comedy to the show as King Backwards who could only speak the opposite of what he really meant – which is how he ended up marrying the evil queen. 

After the performance, as part of a long tradition, many of the performers and their families headed to Montrose where they enjoyed frozen yogurt and signed each others’ Missoula play T-shirts. 

  Lori BODNAR