Bradford is celebrating its 25th year of performances following Missoula Children’s Theater workshops held locally. This year’s matinee will feature the tale of Aladdin, although it is not the traditional story.
Instead, it includes a variety of new characters, including penguins. Yes, penguins. If you aren’t sure how penguins fit into a desert tale, attend the performance to have all your questions answered.
The matinee performance will take place at 2 p.m., Saturday, at the Bradford Area High School Auditorium. It will feature 42 students from around the area, ages 6 to 17.
The production is a creation from Michael McGill, executive director of Missoula Children’s Theater (MCT). It was written by McGill, including the music and lyrics. It is a new production included in the rotation of MCT productions. MCT organizes tours for their various shows through different areas each year, and the show traveling through their area is what workshop participants perform.
Truman Forbes, 17, will be Aladdin this year. He has been participating in the Missoula Children’s Theater workshop since he was six.
“I really like being with friends. Through the years, we have created a close group (of friends), and that is part of what brings us back every year,” Forbes said.
He noted he also enjoys meeting younger workshop participants and seeing what they think about live theater.
“When I was little, I looked up to the older kids. Last year and this year, I feel like I’ve become someone they can look up to,” he said.
For Forbes, playing Aladdin is a long-standing dream come true.
“I am very excited to play Aladdin. I have always wanted to play a big part, and each year, I have been happy to get a bigger and bigger part,” he said.
Forbes noted his first part was a seahorse in the production of Little Mermaid.
Curen Feliciani, a first-year presenter who is visiting Bradford as part of his first week on the job with MCT, had glowing feedback for the local students.
“The kids are great; they pick up everything so fast,” he said. He explained that he is a recent graduate with a BFA in Theater and Acting and a former MCT kid himself. When asked what his favorite production was as a participant, he considered it a tie between Beauty Lou and the Country Beast and the Tortoise and the Hare.
Bradford participants performed Beauty Lou and the Country Beast in 2017, while Kady Nordstrom, the other MCT presenter involved in this year’s workshop for Bradford, noted that Beauty Lou was the play she toured with last season.
For Nordstrom, this year’s Aladdin is a different experience.
“It is a very silly show, but people will like it,” Nordstrom said. “The kids are having fun, and that is what is important.”
Nordstrom expressed her gratitude to Bradford Creative & Performing Arts Center (BCPAC) for bringing MCT back year after year and also for the hard work they do to register participants for the workshop.
Terri Leven, representing BCPAC, noted Aladdin is a show with lots of humor, making it fun for an audience of any age. She also explained a bit about what the workshop participants do in their time off stage.
“We try to integrate STEM and STEAM activities. This year, the 6-7 age group created desert biomes. Yesterday, they made slime, and they measured the ingredients for that.
“(The children) made paper bag puppets, and we have a puppet theater so they had a puppet show,” Leven said, explaining the puppets they made were characters from Aladdin as well.
“They are allowed to learn in a relaxed environment and make new friends, while they are learning live theater,” she said.
Other shows MCT has brought to Bradford throughout the years include: The Secret Garden (2018), The Frog Prince (2016), Blackbeard the Pirate (2015), The Pied Piper (2014) and Robinson Crusoe (2013). The first MCT workshop production was Rumpelstiltskin in 1995. The Frog Prince has been a repeat performance for our area with a previous visit in 2003, as has Beauty Lou and the Country Beast (1997) and Rumpelstiltskin (2005).
