Kids of kids to perform, 20 years later
Linda Sappington
More than 100 students will perform “Hansel and Gretel” at Polson High this weekend.
Linda Sappington
Parents and their children include, from left, Analeigh, Eden and Braeden Bryant; Kori and Reegan Stinger; Aleysia Black, Shane Perry and Olivia Valentine, daughter of Alysha Valentine, not pictured.
Linda Sappington
Neal and Karen Lewing rehearse with the students.
Linda Sappington
Linda Sappington
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POLSON — As Port Polson Players open their 34th children’s winter production this weekend, some of the 110 children cast in Hansel and Gretel will be wearing the same costumes their parents did in years past.
Shane Perry, 29, performed in at least three of the productions as a child. His daughter, second-grader Aleysia Black, is currently cast as a “Brat.”
In school, Perry was close friends with David Lewing, the son of producers Karen and Neal Lewing, so he figured he’d hang out with friends and give the stage a try. The Lewings, he said, always stay positive and keep the fast-paced rehearsals fun.
“I’m surprised they have any hair left,” he said.
With two full casts of 55 children, the production gets hectic.
“But the night of the play, it all comes together,” Perry reminisced.
Throughout her school years, 2003 Polson graduate Eden Bryant performed for the Lewings, and agreed “they are exactly the same.”
Bryant and her family recently moved back to Polson. Their two children, Analeigh, 6, and Braeden, 10, will perform this weekend.
“After moving away I was sad the kids couldn’t be part of this, but now it’s really neat to come back, and to see the kids interested in it,” she said. Analeigh is in her second year performing, “and she loves it,” Eden said.
Braeden, however, performed in kindergarten and was “petrified,” Eden said. Now in fourth grade, he gave it another try. He was cast in the lead role as Hansel.
“He’s flying through his lines, and really doing great,” she said. “It really brought him out of his shell.”
Kori Stinger, a 1997 PHS grad, said she only did the kids’ play once, and cried every night. “I was too scared,” she said. “I’ve never been one to be in front of a crowd. It’s just not my thing.”
But her husband, Kyle, and 12-year-old daughter Reegan, have no stage fright. Reegan will be performing this weekend, and Kyle performs regularly with Port Polson Players. He even talked Kori into a small part in the play, “Born Yesterday.”
There are no auditions for the children’s plays, so no child is turned away.
“We take them all,” Karen Lewing said. “If they have enough courage and they want to learn, it’s so good for them to be a part of a team.”
Hansel and Gretel is one of seven original musical scripts written by the Lewings, loosely based on fairy tales. Polson K-8 students have performed in Sleeping Beauty, Elves and the Shoemaker, Fortunes Fables, Stone Soup, Heidi, and Babes To Broadway.
“As they have for the past 30-plus years, each cast performs twice: once for the public and once for their peers,” Karen Lewing said. The public performances are at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Jan. 27 and 28, on the Polson High School stage.
On Monday, Jan. 30, students perform for their peers, including all home schools, pre-schools and Polson elementary schools at 9 a.m. followed by Dayton School and Polson Middle School at 1 p.m.
“We’ve got to keep going,” Karen Lewing said of the kids’ productions in the school. “What gets the first axe? The arts.”
Cathy Gillhouse will accompany on the piano and high school students will lend a hand while earning SERVE credits. Community theatre volunteers will sell tickets and oversee the production’s needs.
The show is produced by Port Polson Players in association with Mission Valley Friends of the Arts and Polson School District 23.
