Youth play ‘Mary Poppins Jr.’ opens Thursday at theater
by Richard Lamb–Advance Editor
A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down, is really true. The delightful “Mary Poppins Jr.,” with many familiar tunes, is set to hit the stage at the Rogers Theater this weekend. Shows will be staged Thursday (July 30) , Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m., one hour later than the usual start for a Sunday matinee.
Produced by the Rogers City Community Theatre, the classic tale will follow the familiar path of the popular movie with Julie Andrews and Dick VanDyke, but tailored for a younger cast.
“It’s a little different than the movie. There’s a few of the scenes and some of the music is different to the movie,” said co-director April Coburn.
“We have the original songs like ‘Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’ and ‘Let’s Go Fly Kite,’ ‘Jolly Holiday,’ ‘Spoonful of Sugar.’ All the big, the big, the big numbers people will know are all in there, but there’s some other music in there too,” added co-director Jackie Supina.
The cast of 20-plus children has been working hard on this summer’s production.
“This year we had about nine or 10 new kids. We have a kiddo from Hillman. Our schedule is about three to four weeks shorter than our normal time. So, we’ve super squeezed it in. Everyone has done great. There’s been lots of homework,” Jackie Supina said.
Adelyn Taylor plays the lead role with Walter Janoweic playing Bert. Levi Budnik is George Banks while Winifred Banks is played by Madison McFray and Everly Puravs portrays Jane Banks with Beni Flatt in the role of Michael Banks.
“They’ve done really well with it. It’s been fun to see. We’ve actually added some boys this year. The cast is still predominantly female, but we’ve added some boys and they’ve really blossomed into their roles, which has been fun to watch,” April Coburn said.
Another change comes backstage.
“One of the things we’ve changed with the program this year is we’re trying to move towards having not just student cast, obviously, but also student run crew. So, our music assistant, (Brooke Crawford) is a student, our assistant director (Ashlynn Coburn) is a student, our stage manager (Crawford) is a student. So, we’re trying to move towards having more and more, like, a student run show, not just a student cast,” April Coburn said.
“We did the family day again, where most of the kids come and paint the sets, they do a lot of the signs. They’ll do most of the set moving this year. We’re just really trying to get them more involved. It’s their show,” Jackie Supina added.
Other cast members include Avonlee Johnson, Paisley Brandt, Audrey Coburn, Reagon Wodkowski, Brooke Johnson, Makayla Dodge, Emma Getzmeyer, Daisy McFray, Noelle Glomski, Lilly Hanscom, Sami Coburn, Ensley Puravs, Rosie Lapp, Caroline Supina, Mary Sue Lapp, Poppy Supina and Lily Janowiec.
Set masters are David Coburn and John Supina and the tech crew consists of Baylee Lijewski, Cas Haske, Pennie Hoeft, Ava Kelly and Ashlynn Coburn. Jeff Janowiec is the show’s producer.
