Published: May 08, 2008 12:25 pm      

Classic children's tale to be staged at Mountain Playhouse

BY RUTH RICE

RRICE@TRIBDEM.COM

The classic children’s story “Charlotte’s Web” will be presented by TheatreWorks USA at 3 p.m. Sunday at Mountain Playhouse, Jennerstown.

The story tells about the friendship between a pig named Wilbur and a gray spider named Charlotte and is set in a barnyard and at the county fair.

Candace LaRicci will star as Charlotte, wearing a spider-like black hood and green dress.

“I stand behind the barn so the audience can’t see the bottom part of me,” LaRicci said.

“I have to move like a spider.”

She added that costumes for the show are more the suggestion of the animal, with Wilbur dressing in pink and wearing a snout.

“It’s true to the book,” LaRicci said.

Other cast members are a rat named Templeton; a goose and gander; an old sheep; a girl named Fern; a farmer; and a narrator.

The play is appropriate for kindergartners through fifth-graders and will last 55 minutes.

LaRicci said some of the lines are taken right out of the book, which she thinks is more serious and sad than the play.

“I think the audience will enjoy the comedic aspects,” La-Ricci said. “I don’t think Charlotte is as harsh as she is in the book and movie.”

This isn’t a musical production, but LaRicci will sing a song while spinning her web, and be joined later by three other characters.

LaRicci is a graduate of Elizabethtown College, where she majored in music therapy, and the Circle in the Square Theater School.

She has done children’s theater before, but this is her longest assignment.

LaRicci and the fellow members of the theater troupe have been on tour with “Charlotte’s Web” since Dec. 26.

She said the six-month tour has traveled as far west as Kentucky, Tennessee, Michigan and Illinois, but mostly sticks to the East Coast.

“When we’re local in New York City, we do school auditoriums, but on the road, we do theater houses,” LaRicci said. “We have about a month left on this tour.”

TheatreWorks USA is a traveling theater company that specializes in providing young audiences with their first taste of the performing arts.

Karen Ridilla, group sales manager at the playhouse, said more than 100 tickets have already been sold for the Mother’s Day performance.

“We’ve done a children’s performance for Mother’s Day in the past and thought we would do it this year,” Ridilla said.

“Charlotte’s Web” also will be performed for elementary students at 10 a.m. and noon Monday through May 16.

“We have 10 shows, and they’re filled up,” Ridilla said.

“That’s 4,000 kids. I’ve been turning people away. I’ve been booking for next year’s show, and we don’t even know what it is.”



On stage

Wha: “Charlotte’s Web,” presented by TheatreWorks USA.

When: 3 p.m. Sunday.

Where: Mountain Playhouse, Jennerstown.

Tickets: $10.

Information: 629-9201.