If you’ve spent any time at the Center for the Arts recently, chances are you’ve seen a few young people scurrying through the halls in curious clothing—boys donning tweed trousers, suspenders and bowties; girls in long, flowing skirts, lace blouses and wide-brimmed hats.
No, this isn’t the next generation of hipsters (or is it?). These are the cast members of Off Square Theatre’s The Music Man Jr. It’s an adaptation of Meredith Willson’s Tony-Award winning musical set in 1912 (hence the excellent costumes). The show premieres Friday, February 21 at Center for the Arts.
“It brings in all these kids from different backgrounds and different experiences with theater and the performing arts and creates this one unified production,” Jeremiah Burch told KHOL. The Jackson Hole High School senior stars in The Music Man Jr. as Harold Hill, “a fast-talking con man who comes into this with the hopes of scamming the local populace.”
Hill learns a thing or two in the process. And Burch did, too. It’s a character “very different than anything I have played before.”
Burch’s progression as a character actor—he also delivered an animated performance as Gomez Addams in Off Square’s 2019 youth musical The Addams Family—is not the only thing on display. Director Nicole Madison-Garrett pointed to the transformations of the dozens of young people who comprise the cast. “We’ve got kids ages 8 to 18 who are in the show,” she said. “The first day they come, it’s a different place than when they walk out on the stage and the audience is in the house.”
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