A story featuring love, friendship, freedom and self-discovery along with plenty of humor and adventure will take center stage this week as Philomath Middle School presents “Aladdin Jr.” in four performances at the high school auditorium.
The play will be performed at 7 p.m. Thursday (A cast), 7 p.m. Friday (B cast), 1 p.m. Saturday (B cast) and 7 p.m. Saturday (A cast). Admission at the door is $10 for adults, $5 for students.
Gallery: Philomath Middle School’s ‘Aladdin Jr.’
A collection of photos from Philomath Middle School’s “Aladdin Jr.,” as performed during the play’s tea party fundraiser on March 6.
Shannon Webb, middle school band instructor who co-directs the play, describes ”Aladdin” as just a great story to bring to the stage.
“It’s like a fairy tale, has very interesting characters, the genie is always a dynamic character … so it was just the time for it,” Webb said when asked how “Aladdin” was chosen as this year’s play. “Genie, Aladdin, Jafar, Sultan, Jasmine — it was just the characters, which is kind of how we decided on it. And then the costumes are just really fun.”
Philomath Middle School last performed “Aladdin Jr.” in March 2019.
“The director team decides and we throw around different ideas for shows of what we want to do next,” Webb said. “Aladdin was on the ‘next up’ kind of list and we all thought, ‘yeah, this is the year’ so we decided as a team that it was time to bring back ‘Aladdin.’”
Participation in the middle school play is not mandatory, which one might think is the case based on the number of participants.
“It’s open to sixth- through eighth-grade students and we have 64 in the cast — those are actors on stage singing and dancing,” Webb said. “And then we have about 25 crew members who are moving the set pieces, doing the lights up there and the soundboard and all of the tech-like things.”
The production features an A and B cast to allow more students to perform in starring roles.
Webb said a number of older students have been engaged as well.
“We have quite a few high schoolers coming to help,” she said. “We have a few trying out the directorship roles and so many of the students that were in ‘Beauty and the Beast’ come back and help at the middle school. We have a good group of seniors that are just always there at the ready to help.”
“Aladdin Jr.” was cast in December before the winter break and practice got started after the first of the year.
“It’s been every day after school Monday through Thursday from 3 to 5, pushing 6 now, as we get closer to the show,” Webb said.
Aladdin’s lead roles in the A and B casts — those that drive the primary plot and themes — include Bob Avery and Evan Bennett as Aladdin, Sophia Brandt and Jacquelyn Moore as Princess Jasmine, Zaynab Plaire and Nova Taylor as Genie, Elijah Arthurs and Yuri Schuff as Jafar, Deaglan Pindell and Evan O’Rourke as Sultan, and McKinley Chisholm and Mirielle Cupp as Iago.
The choreography of middle school plays always holds such an important role in the overall production. Volunteer Lori Haslam returned to handle those duties again this year.
“Those dances are hard and I can’t imagine doing them,” Webb said. “But the kids, they just eat it up, they’re just ‘yeah, let’s do this’ — like with kickball-change types of things or just a really hard dance and it’s really fast.”
Webb lauded the efforts of the production’s team.
“It literally cannot happen without each puzzle piece,” Webb said. “Like we have … Maria Bunyi — she’s the new music teacher at the middle school and Blodgett, and she is co-directing it this year along with Cooper Latz, he’s also taking on a larger director role, and they just cover so much that nobody sees and it’s really great.”
Bunyi, Latz, Webb and Danielle Barton are all listed as directors for the play. High school directors include Natalee Barton, Hanna McDaniel, Brooke McDaniel, Maggy Real and Thatcher Noel.
Webb also mentioned a costume “dream team” of Cheryl Anderton and Jolene Latz. In addition to Haslam as choreographer, others in leadership positions include Brian Skaar (set construction), Katrina Kildea (set design), Nichole Stucki (music director) and Linda Skaar and Mark Latz (consultants).
Young children, parents and other family members got a sneak peek last week at the middle school play’s tea party.
“It serves a few purposes — one is to raise money. Students participating in the play donate cookies and those are the ones that we pass out to guests,” Webb said. “And then it’s also a way for younger kids to see the play. Like with 3-year-olds, maybe an hour is not something that they can sit through and so the tea party gives them an opportunity to do a 20-minute show for the singing and dancing, and they get to interact with the characters, too.”
The cast served cookies and lemonade in full costume before performing some scenes from the play. Laura Kildea coordinates the event.
For Webb, it’s her 10th play in the school district — five each at the high school and middle school levels.
“They definitely take a ton of work, a ton of time but it’s so worth it to see the kids shine,” she said. “One of my favorite things is seeing the kids in leadership roles with the high schoolers coming back to help out but then the middle schoolers through the years as they go from sixth grade to eighth grade and they grow as leaders.”
