Three Little Pigs rap in Rosebud’s Snow White
Laureen F. Guenther
Times Contributor
Rosebud’s Theatre for Young Audiences: Twisted Tales brings the Snow White musical to the Opera House, March 1-4.
“There’s a Master Book of Stories,” said Mark Lewandowski, the show’s director. “Lexicon is the Master Storyteller and he has all of the stories in there.”
But Lexicon’s apprentice, Malcolm, has created a problem.
“He tries to do good things, but he’s just awkward and clumsy and he makes a mess of the book,” said Lewandowski. “It means that all the fairytales all over the world have been changed. So [Malcolm] has been instructed by Lexicon to read through these things, so when something is wrong, he’s supposed to go in and fix it.”
But Malcolm is having difficulty straightening out the stories, so when the cast tries to bring Snow White to the stage, the story of the Three Little Pigs is twisted along with it.
“There are things that are going wrong in both of those tales,” he said. “Malcolm the Apprentice has to go in and solve it.”
The cast and crew include members of Rosebud School of the Arts’ graduating class. Emily Cambridge, Sarah Robinson and Justin Lanouette are acting, and Anna Schroder is designing props and costumes.
Recent grads Kaitlyn Sloboda, Jenny Daigle, Kendra Hutchinson, and Geordie Cowan are also performing, and Naomi Esau is stage manager.
“I’m excited about this cast,” said Lewandowski. “It’s going to be lots of fun.”
Lewandowski’s cast is taking the lyrics of the original musical, and setting them to new music. One song will be a ballad, he said, and the rest are raps, to be performed by the rap trio of the Three Little Pigs, whose names happen to be Harry, Curly and Joe.
“They’re [cast] going to have a good time with that and I think that’s going to show to the audience,” said Lewandowski. “It’s lots of slapstick. It’s lots of physical humour. It’s just a lot of fun.”
The audience will enjoy the silly humour and the audience interaction, he said, and older children and adults will also recognize and enjoy the cleverness of twisting the tales together.
Theatre for Young Audience’s Snow White was performed at twice-daily matinees March 1-3, for school and home-school groups, and for the general public, March 4.
An optional family-friendly noon buffet may be purchased. Tickets and more information are available at rosebudtheatre.com or 1-800-267-7553.