Plainwell children got to fly off to Neverland Saturday, Aug. 19, appearing in the children’s play “Peter and Wendy.”
“Don’t be afraid to use your silly voices and have fun on stage,” co-director Ryan Fazziola told his cast.
By all reports, the 23 local children in the cast did that and more.
Fazziola and his co-director, Colleen Bielman, are part of the Missoula Children’s Theatre and travel the country in a pickup truck loaded with the props and costumes needed to put on the play. They spent a week in Plainwell before the show. Bielman is a Troy native and Western Michigan University graduate who worked on last summer’s children’s play.
Bielman said, “We get to see a really cool transition from Monday to Saturday.
“There’s often a kid who will barely say his name and by the end he’s singing a solo.”
Nancy Heilig, who helped organize the play, said the turnout on Saturday at the Plainwell Community Center was excellent.
“If we’d have one more person, we’d have had to hang them from the rafters,” she said. “We had a complete sellout.”
Already looking ahead to next year, Heilig said she hoped the play could grow as more children came to participate.
“They can have more,” she said. “We only had three Lost Boys, this time, and they can do up to eight.”
The general idea would be to bring the Missoula Children’s Theatre back, but aim for an earlier time in the summer and possibly expand to bring in kids from Martin and Otsego.
Donations collected at the play will fund some of the cost next year, but the Anna R. Pipp Foundation, Hope Lutheran Church and private donors funded this year’s play, along with support from the Plainwell Arts Council.
The council also is supporting next year’s effort with proceeds from its Labor Day Bridgewalk this year.
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