The cast of Oak Heights’ 24th annual operetta delighted parents and visitors with an adaptation of Walt Disney’s “Robin Hood.”
Among visitors were family, friends and state Sen. Roger Beyer, R-Molalla, who represents Sweet Home.
The cast included 58 sixth-grade students. Two fifth-grade classes comprised the choir for the musical.
Teacher and operetta director Kathy Ives was delighted to see Blake Keesecker (Robin Hood), Jared Burcham (Little John) and Scott Gagner (the Sheriff of Nottingham) attending the play. The three high school seniors were members of the cast the last time Oak Heights put the play on, seven years ago. Ives did not know if other former cast members were present.
This year’s sixth-grade students were happy with their performance Thursday night, the culmination of a series of performances.
“It’s good,” Caid Sanders (Tony and a merry man) said. “I liked it. I think we probably could have done extra practice to get ready.”
Still, Sanders and his fellow actors thought the performance went well.
“I think it’s pretty cool acting,” David Thornbrough (Mr. Dale) said. Once the lights go on, “you’re scared,” and he worried about forgetting his lines.
What he did forget was to move on stage so he was near the microphone, Ives said. They turned to Todd Workman (Robin Hood) to grab him and pull him under the microphone. That worked easily into the plot.
“It’s all about teamwork,” Thornbrough said. “It actually takes a lot of concentration. You’ve got to try to act like it’s actually happening…. The square dancing seems kind of hard,” but the hardest part of acting is “trying to make it look like I was actually made at him (Sanders).”
The play opened with teacher Mr. Dale and his classroom. In the scene, Sanders kept pointing arrows at his classmates in an effort to make history more interesting. That led to the class performing the story of Robin Hood.
In this version, Robin Hood is well into stealing from the rich and giving the money to overtaxed villagers. Prince John (Blake Roberts) conceives a plot to raise money to ransom his brother King Richard (Braxon Slack). In this plot, his men would pose as Robin Hood and his merry men and steal the ransom back for Prince John’s coffers. Robin Hood would earn the enmity of the people. Instead, Robin Hood learns of the plot, steals the money himself, ransom’s King Richard and exposes Prince John’s plot.
“It’s fun to get to act like you’re the king and you’re in charge of everybody,” Roberts said. “It was pretty easy. You just have to remember your lines and know what scene’s next.”
The toughest part of his job was finding a voice for Hiss, Prince John’s pet snake, a puppet attached to Roberts throughout the performance.
Throughout the performance, with the help of artist in residence Jean Bonifas, the students learned about stage production, everything from stage directions to projecting their voices.
Parts of the play were choreographed. Instead of lines, a number of sixth-grade students were dancers.
“We had to dance on stage,” minstrel Alyssa Logan said. “We danced and told the story. We just had to learn all the dances.”
Workman had his share too. During one song, he and the Sheriff of Nottingham had mini-fights that repeated throughout the song.
“It was really fun,” Darrell Risen (Little John) said. “Probably my favorite part was the love song.”
During that scene, the merry men are teasing Robin Hood for being in love with Maid Marion (Faith Helfrich). Risen and Raymond Armijo (Friar Tuck) danced about on stage, swinging merry men about.
“It was a blast,” Risen said. “I think we came together really well at the very end.”
The first performance was great, he said and others concurred. The next performances wasn’t as good, but they got better culminating in Thursday night’s performance.
“Everybody worked really hard,” Risen said. “That was the really important part.”
The classes also performed the play to elementary classes throughout the district then Friday at Twin Oaks Care Center and Wiley Creek Community.