Presented by Boundary County Schools Directed by David Carpenter

Opening night was a huge success for this group’s play, given that opening night was on a “snow day” from school and the roads were just plain nasty. The play opened to a near sold out crowd. Had weather conditions been better there is no doubt that it would have been standing room only.

Perusing the program before the show, I wondered, with over 50 children (ages three to 18)  involved in this production, and a lot of them little ones, how this play would hold together. But hold together it did. The little ones were adorable and handled themselves as seasoned actors, singing and dancing with the rest of the troupe.

This was decidedly a difficult musical to perform. The children started out participating in a weekly acting workshop in July learning the nuances of acting, singing and dancing. From there their efforts evolved into a full-blown musical. The older actors had to sing, dance and act at the same time while keeping in character with the colloquial, Cockney accent. I was quite impressed that The Artful Dodger, Noah Reason, was able to imitate the language so well. It is not an easy accent to mimic.

Oliver, as portrayed by Matthew Wilson, had the most cherubic face with a touch of devilment in his eyes. As the main character, the burden to shine was his and I truly believe he did that quite well. His brother, David Wilson, who played Bill Sykes, was very frightening as an older street urchin. The murderous scene where he strangled Nancy, the girl who loved him, was quite riveting. To quote the 5-year-old sitting next to me “That was a GREAT murder scene!”.

There were so many actors, it would be hard to name them all. For some of the older actors this was their inaugural performance. I loved Brooklyn Wilson as the Widow Corney. She has a lovely voice and a fetching touch of comedy. She also painted most of the pieces for the set, which were ingenuously designed with the help of Bruce Spradlin. Fagin, the adult leader of the thieves (played by Skye Ashdown) gave a sustained performance with comedic relief.

I must admit that I have a wrong to right. When I saw Brook Wilson in No Cure For Love, I didn’t give her much notice even though I had been told that she had a lot of potential, that with hard work and experience she would be awesome. I didn’t see it,  I was blind. As Nancy, she gave a marvelous performance. Keep an eye on this young sophomore, as she will be another young talent in our community that bears watching.

When I asked David Carpenter why he chose the musical Oliver, he said “...so that I could have as many children included as possible...”.  He, together with his wife Dawn, has a passion to pass on all the many aspects that go into making a musical to our children. From the weekly workshops that started in July (including how to articulate the Cockney accent) that had homework in the form of research as well as practice,  from workshops on lighting and sound to the end product they were always there. One can’t even imagine how much time and effort went into this musical. The costumes were researched for the time period and most designed accordingly by Charla Jo Spradlin.  These children, parents, teachers and friends all deserve recognition for their many hours dedicated to practice, acting, costuming, choreography, and set making to make it come together.

After experiencing this musical, there is no doubt that, bad roads or not, the children’s next production will be standing room only.