Students join Playhouse in Wizard production
This new Oz features over 100 student and volunteer actors all under professional direction with a fully professional production created by the Playhouse staff. The style of this Oz includes hip hop and jitterbug dances, a Glinda the Good Witch wearing pink high top sneakers and a fun, funky, contemporary attitude.
“This is not just your grandma’s Wizard of Oz,” said Jim Crabtree, CCP’s producing director, “but then again, it is your grandma’s beloved story. It’s the version truest to the movie that Grandma first saw in 1939.”
The Playhouse, partnering with the drama program of Cumberland County High School, is using the newest authorized script of Wizard, the one created in England by CATS director Trevor Nunn and the Royal Shakespeare Company. High school drama teacher and advisor Tammy Frady helps coordinate the school aspects of the project.
“We love combining volunteers and professionals in acting and every other phase of playmaking,” says Crabtree. “For example, by including professional musicians in the pit along with students in the Cumberland County High band, and the Children of Crossville Chamber Orchestra, we get both a great sound and a great spirit. The kids learn by playing with the pros, and the pros have fun jamming with youngsters.”
“We have two great young women alternating as The Cowardly Lion, which gives it a whole new twist,” said director Nicole Begue, “and a great group of strong Playhouse teen dancers are turning into a wild tornado! Students and parents are involved in all areas, onstage and behind the scenes.”
“This is the kind of community project which launched the Playhouse exactly 40 years ago,” commented Mary Crabtree, consulting producer Mary Crabtree. “It was the fun and excitement of the original “Pinocchio,” written and directed by my late husband Paul Crabtree, and performed by over 100 junior high schoolers, that inspired the community to build the theater.”
Today, the Playhouse serves the largest live theater audience in Tennessee, hosting over 160,000 visits and generating over $8 million in economic impact each year for Crossville and the Cumberlands.
“We find that combining volunteers and pros creates wonderful shows and the very best kind of spirited family entertainment,” notes Janet Kluender, business manager. “Volunteers, kids, teens and professionals swap craft and joy, experience and energy, and the production becomes something special. This year, with our Free Audition Workshops, we hope to entice children, teens, and adults from neighboring counties, as well as Cumberland County, to join in the fun of being in a play or helping produce a play,” she said.