After rekindling a partnership with the Columbia Theatre last spring for “Little Red Riding Hood,” the Missoula Children’s Theatre returned to prepare and present a production in only one week.  Peter Pan played by Joseph DePaula and Wendy Darling played by Destiny Seaberry’s characters were not changed. Names are changed because of copyrights.
Larshell Green/The Lion's Roar

Missoula Children’s Theatre, a traveling troupe, recently returned to the Columbia Theatre to direct, cast and present a new version of a classic Disney movie “Peter Pan” in the form of a play over the span of one week. 

On Friday, Oct. 28 and Saturday, Oct. 29, the Columbia Theatre for the Performing Arts presented “Peter and Wendy.” The play and music for the production was pre-written and conceived by Michael McGill and other writers of Missoula Children’s Theatre.

Cheryl Cripps of north Louisiana returned to the Columbia Theatre to see her second granddaughter Marlie Catchot, as an ostrich in “Peter and Wendy.” Cripps first traveled to the theatre to see her other granddaughter perform in a dance recital. 

“It was awesome, it was wonderful, I’m very proud,” said Cripps. “She tried out and we didn’t expect a play for another couple of months, so we were actually surprised that it was so soon.”

“Peter and Wendy” was directed by tour actors Matthew Hogan and Jenn Jensen. The pair travels for productions and conducts all of the operations throughout the time allotted. 

“I came in with no tech experience at all,” said Jensen. They train us really well and send pairs of two all over the country. We do all the show laundry, basic costume and prop repairs. We put up the set every week, take it down with help from the community, keep everything in order and drive it around.”

Natalia Timotina played piano throughout the production and began rehearsals on Wednesday following Monday’s auditions.  

Assistant Director of “Peter and Wendy,” Averie Avegno, initially heard about the production after her mother saw a post about it on Facebook. The 15-year-old homeschooled student from Ponchatoula came with her sister to audition and made new connections during the production. 

“Everyone gets together and makes friends and just be a community together,” said Avegno. “It helps everyone bond together. I made several new friends here. I think it’s really amazing that they can get a group of kids together to do a whole production in a week.”

The Columbia Theatre previously worked with the Missoula Theatre Company last spring when they presented “Little Red Riding Hood.” 

“We had them for two years now and then several years ago,” said Executive Director of the Columbia Theatre, Roy Blackwood. “We were excited about the new things they were doing and we really wanted to bring them back.”

Blackwood was impressed by the current team’s ability to arrive on last Sunday, conduct auditions on Monday night and begin and continue rehearsals on Monday night throughout the week. He stated that other acts rarely stay throughout the entire week, but was thankful for the community connection that the production warranted. 

“This is a good thing for us because their parents or grandparents or siblings like to come, so it’s a real community kind of event,” said Blackwood. “It went really, really well, the Missoula people were just overjoyed with it.  It really went beautifully, partly because a lot of these kids have had so much experience and there are other opportunities that they have had to work, so they’ve learned their lines and knew their cues.”

The Missoula Children’s Theatre is based out of Missoula, Montana and has been around for about 45 years. 

“We travel to all 50 states and 17 countries, so it’s been around for a while,” said Hogan. “It started in Montana and now we’ve expanded. The goal of our company is to teach life skills to theatre students.”

Jensen believes that the skills acquired with the theatre company are also valuable to non-theatre students.

“It’s not even to just teach skills to theatre students,” said Jensen. “It’s to teach life skills to children across the board through theatre, teaching team building, self-confidence, cooperation and all those things by taking a small commitment time a week and working together to put together a large scale production.”

Although Missoula usually travels with the production’s set, props and lighting, the Columbia Theatre provided lighting for this production. Costumes are created and suggested makeup sketches are done at the office, which Jensen and Hogan adapt to fit characters.

“There’s a whole team of people, probably 50 on staff back at the office who work on different aspects of the tour and they also have a community theatre as well that work with people locally,” said Jensen. “There’s a massive team of people who work on the designs for the costumes and the sets and build everything. Most of the costumes and the sets are built from scratch.”

Hogan admitted that although songs are pre-written to coincide with the production, they also play an important role in the morals revealed to the audience.

 “I think a lot of the songs reflect certain themes, or different lessons they would like us to learn in life, basically, they’re not just singing songs to sing songs. I think each one has a lesson behind it,” said Hogan.

According to Jensen and Hogan, because most of the plays written include copy written materials and characters, they usually have to change characters names and other details.

“Peter Pan” is considered a public domain, so changes occurred in plot twists like The Lost Boys, Neverlanders, Neverland Creatures, Pirates and other characters being adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Darling in the conclusion of the play, but not in other elements.

“Every Missoula Children’s theatre has its own twist because obviously a lot of the material is copy written,” said Hogan. “This one is fairly true to the story, more so than a lot of the other ones and follows the basic plotline of Peter and Wendy, with our little Missoula Children’s twist on it.”

Hogan reveals why he thinks children should be reintroduced to classic stories that are not a part of their generation.

“I think it’s really important,” said Hogan. “I went to a town where they had no idea who Peter Pan was. They had never seen the movie, they had never read the books and I had to kind of sit down and explain to them what happens in the story. It’s interesting. I think the generation a lot of the times don’t have stories read to them anymore, and it’s just interesting that they don’t know the classics that we grew up with.”

The cast consisted of characters that played Peter Pan, Tinker Bell, Wendy Darling, John Darling, Michael Darling, Shadow, Hook, Mrs. Darling, Mr. Darling, Nana, Liza, Tiger Lily, Crocodile, Petey, Lost Boys, Neverlanders, Neverland Creatures, Pirates and Clouds.

Joseph DePaula, who plays Peter Pan, attends Southeastern Lab School. The 12-year-old initially heard about the production because a lot of his classmates are in it and values being a part of the show put on by a traveling troupe.

“I was nervous at first, but I like it,” said DePaula. “We didn’t really audition for a specific role. It’s a traveling troupe, so it’s not like it stays around the town, so it’s a really big thing. Plus, you have to put on a show in a week.”

Champ Cooper Elementary School student, Caitlyn Hammac, plays a new addition to the story of “Peter Pan” in the production, Peter’s Shadow. Although the 13-year-old describes the character as sarcastic and funny, she views it as a major character that helps reveal the moral of the production.

 “This one has a kind of meaning,” said Hammac. “It gives out a lesson, kind of like everybody can have a good ending, which a lot of kids should know that.”

Jensen and Hogan remained gracious of the Columbia Theatre for their help with the show and shared how they wanted audiences to feel.

“The audience consists mostly of parents and friends and teachers of kids in the show, and we want them to feel proud of the cast who is in the show,” said Jensen. “I think we want the audience to feel a little bit amazed, a little bit astounded that their kids who auditioned for the show on Monday did this today in less than a week. We want them to see how much can be accomplished if you just set that expectation out there.”

Blackwood views the performance as an opportunity to further teamwork and a love for live theatre for the children involved.

“It’s great to have different age groups working together, learning together and becoming a team together, but the other thing that’s really critical is that these kids now have an exposure to theatre,” said Blackwood. “They kind of feel an ownership about live theatre and they’re gonna want to come again. What we’re doing is basically trying to build the next generation of theatre-goers to help them understand the value of live theatre.” 

 The theatre company based out of Missoula, Montana often puts twists on classics like  “Peter Pan.” Tinker Bell, played by Herress Williams and DePaula celebrate her health after suspecting she was poisoned by Captain Hook. 
Larshell Green/The Lion's Roar