It’s All About the Kids

In true Disney fashion, the students of the Freedom High School drama department made dreams come true over the weekend, pulling some children from the audience up to the stage to be a part of each of Fairy Tale Plays.

The show consisted of three fairy tales: Emperor’s New Clothes, Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella, keeping a consistent castle set. During each act, a narrator would wander the aisles, interacting with the audience and eventually selecting a few students to become part of the court, usually greeting the princess with gasps of awe as she emerges in her wedding gown. During Sleeping Beauty, Prince Charming even taught one little girl how to dance with the court.

This is the first year that Freedom High has performed their annual children’s show in-house. According to director Mark Rogers, the show used to be a one-act play that was toured around to local schools. “I figured that we should take the show for kids to the kids,” said Rogers. This year is different because “I thought, ‘This is something I’ve never done before. It’s time to do it.’”

The tales were consistent with the Disney versions, with small differences here and there to make the show original. These three shows in particular were chosen as part of a kingdom theme, with kings and queens and courts. Costumes and props were brought in to reflect the different time periods of each play in at attempt to make the show educational as well as entertaining.

Students throughout the drama department were actors in The Fairy Tale Plays, with some freshman and first-time performers getting a chance to play some bigger roles. Although the names of these particular characters don’t make them sound too important, Lady One and Lady Two actually have a bigger role than Princess Beauty, according to Rogers. Emmy Bourne and Shelly Walsh took center stage in a battle to prove who belonged at court, and their squabbling did steal the spotlight. They fought, sometimes literally, over every little thing. Even during 100 years of sleep, one had to be on top of the other.

“This is the type of play where you can do that,” said Rogers. “In Les Mis, which we’ll be doing in the spring, the lead roles require students with experience, who have really worked in class and out. Fairy Tale Plays takes only a sense of fun. These characters are designed to be one-dimensional, not three-dimensional.”

Other on-stage antics were designed to keep the attention of the younger audience members, such as a chef getting a pie in the face and an eager tailor presenting his “magic cloth” to the emperor in a dance.

But despite the focus on children, the show was also intended to, and succeeded in, entertaining adults as well. “One of the parents actually said that it made him feel like a kid again,” said Rogers. “And that’s what Walt Disney was all about. I love to see that, to see adults and children alike get lost in the world of fairy tales and say, “I believe in fairies!”

Download the movie

Download the movie