Alpha Psi Omega will be performing a theatrical children’s show, “Once Upon a Pine,” next week at the Vonnie Borden Theater. There will be two performances that will take place on Apr. 27 at 7:30 p.m. and a second showing on Apr. 28 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets will cost $10 for general admission, student and children tickets will cost $5 and kids who are two and under can get in for free.
“It’s a rendition of Pinocchio,” said senior English education major and president of Alpha Psi Omega Emily Nodine. “So it does follow the same plot line as Pinocchio but it diverges from that path at certain points to make it more interesting. It’s definitely not the same story, but you’ll recognize a lot of things from the play that are in the original Pinocchio story.”
The play itself will be a visual experience that will revolve around using puppets.
“It’s not all puppets,” said Nodine. “We have a donkey puppet, bird puppets and the big puppet is the cricket. It’s definitely different for the actors that are using the puppets because they have to act through something else.”
“Once Upon a Pine” was written by Tommy Jamerson who has written other shows for the Alpha Psi Omega in the past and some of the actors felt strongly about doing a Pinocchio rendition.
“While growing up “Pinocchio” was something I think most children watched,” said senior theater design major Taylor Sinclair. “I really wanted to be a part of it because nowadays kids aren’t getting to see movies that we saw growing up. To be able to bring it to life in person to me means the most and that’s why I wanted to do this, it’s more for them than it is for us.”
Also, university students haven’t been the only ones to actually take part in this play.
“I just heard about the script being about collaborative narrators telling the story of Pinocchio,” said LSU mathematics graduate Tyler Meyers. “I heard it was just following Gepetto and Pinocchio, the only essential characters. These narrators take on everything else in the background and it seems like a really physically fun play. I also love doing kids shows and James Winter is a good friend of mine, he’s a good director and I love working with him.”
The cast only had one month to prepare for the play and each week they went through many rehearsals.
“A lot of the actors haven’t worked with these kinds of puppets before so it was a learning process for everyone,” said Nodine. “There were intense rehearsals where we only did one scene over and over again until it was perfect. We are hoping for full houses because our last show had full houses.”
The cast will consist of Briana Rogers, Taylor Sinclair, Caitlin Hotard, Cody Sires, Emily Nodine, Kelsey Hymel, Neal Eli, Olivia Waguespack and Tyler Meyers.