The 2014 Live Blog from the Junior Theater Festival
By Adam Hetrick
Playbill.com is live blogging from the 2014 Junior Theater Festival in Atlanta, GA.
Tony Award-nominated A Christmas Storywriters Benj Pasek and Justin Paul,Heidi Blickenstaff, Ashley Brown and Andrew Keenan-Bolger are among the artists taking part in the three-day festival that features student performances of shows including Hairspray Jr., Legally Blonde Jr., The Little Mermaid Jr., Fiddler on the Roof Jr. and more.
10:50 AM. We're chatting with Tony-nominated Christmas Story collaborators Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, whose new production of James and the Giant Peachwas recently staged at Seattle Children's Theatre.
Pasek and Paul will perform an evening of their material as part of JTF's weekend of events. Among the material they'll be highlighting will be James and the Giant Peach with cast members from the recent Seattle production.
Pasek and Paul will perform an evening of their material as part of JTF's weekend of events. Among the material they'll be highlighting will be James and the Giant Peach with cast members from the recent Seattle production.
"We'll be talking about the show with Tim McDonald, our book writer, who also runs the Junior Theater Festival," Paul said. "We get to introduce James and the Giant Peach to kids teachers and students, because our hope and dream for the show is that it will be in schools across the country."
Pasek added, "It's really accessible for kids, but it's also a little bit scary. It makes people lean forward when they're in the audience. Kids get to do something that's a little bit dangerous. In the first line, James' parents get eaten by an angry white rhinoceros! I think it's really exciting and fun. There's a lot of fantasy in the show and kids get to be crazy creatures. They're imaginations can run wild."
Paul also described the style of the show. "The music ranges in style from latin to gospel to country. The show can also be done with seven or eight people, like we did in Seattle, or with a cast of 30."
With the aim to bring Giant Peach to schools in the near future, the authors also spoke about watching young performers take on their work. "We got to try out the show with a group of child performers a couple years ago. The show played in a way we had never seen before."
Pasek added, "There are two characters in the show, the evil aunts, who are usually played by women in their 50s. But when you have two sassy middle school girls playing these two British aunts... You've never seen anything like it. You're seeing a Patti LuPone in the making!"
We also asked the writers to tell us about the first shows they did as kids that ignited their passion for theatre. For Paul, it was playing Oliver in Oliver!Pasek laughed, adding, "I played Coyote in How Coyote Stole Fire, which I'm pretty sure is a show my teacher made up. Oh, and I was also in The Troll's Gift!"
11:30 AM. The students of Durant Road Musical Theatre, from Raleigh, NC, just performed an incredible production of Xanadu Jr. Yes, you read that correctly. The Tony-nominated musical that features a book by Douglas Carter Beane has been adapted for young performers. That fantastic choreography was created by two of the students in the production.
You can check out a clip from their presentation here.
