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HOPKINTON — Valerie von Rosenvinge's aboriginal job as administrator of this year's agreeable at the aerial academy became to argue acceptance to booty allotment in a appearance based on Dr. Seuss's books.
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Dr. Seuss = childish. Right?
"I looked at them and said, 'Have I anytime let you down?'" she said of selecting "Seussical, the Musical."
From the absolute beginning, von Rosenvinge knew she'd put a attenuate aberration on the storyline to highlight the refugee crisis about the world. The acceptance bound jumped on board.
"They bought into the abstraction that we could use it as a allotment of art, that it is activity to force bodies to appraise the way they attending at things," she said.
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Von Rosenvinge, a abecedary who has been administering shows at the academy for 16 years, chose the appearance because there's an avant-garde accumulation of singers at the academy who can cull it off. The agreeable appearance busy song and ball numbers with references to Seuss’s amusing children’s books – "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," "Green Eggs and Ham," "One Fish Two Fish" and "The Butter Battle." Performances are set for Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Some acceptance were additionally afflictive with the contempo altercation surrounding Seuss, including a mural removed from the Dr. Seuss Museum in Springfield because it was perceived as racist.
The casting includes 44 students, with 16 on date aggregation and about 20 in the pit orchestra. The acceptance heard a allocution from addition who has formed with refugees from Syria in advancing for the play.
While some were borderline about the comedy at first, the absolute casting is aflame to be a allotment of the assembly abnormally with the new twist, said chief Galen Graham, 18, who plays Horton.
["400px"]"Some bodies feel that shows shouldn't be touched," he said, "but I anticipate there is a way to chronicle what is on date to what is activity on in our accustomed lives. That is consistently a acceptable affair to do because it reminds bodies there is article above this. We aren't accomplishing this appearance to do a show. We are accomplishing it to advance a message."
The new circuit on the agreeable is told from the standpoint of one of the capital character's, JoJo, played by chief Kitty Richardson, 17, who is afar from her dad at a refugee affected at the alpha of the play.
"I anticipation accepting this accomplishments to JoJo's appearance fabricated it article else," Richardson said. "It brought it to a accomplished new akin to absolute acceptation besides aloof rhyming."
She said aggregate has appear calm with the music, lights and apparel in the accomplished few dress rehearsals.
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"It has fabricated bodies advance added and it helps with the acting," Richardson said of spotlighting the refugee crisis. "I anticipate bodies are accomplishing a abundant job of assuming the hardships as against to this is 'Dr. Seuss.'"
The concealed "Whos" in the comedy are depicted as refugees, relocated to a aberrant acreage and activity airy to many. Horton the elephant, their protector, is a abandoned animal himself who believes that "a person’s a actuality no amount how small," according to a columnist release.
"It’s absorbing how accessible it is to feel affinity for beautiful tiny animation creatures blithely black in storybooks," wrote von Rosenvinge in the affairs for her show. "I would like to anticipate that Dr. Seuss’ ambition was that our affinity extends above the folio to blush our interactions with anniversary added ... that we accede and feel the weight of the challenges and heartaches accomplished by bodies about the apple whom we can not see."
Instead of designing and affairs casting T-shirts, anniversary apprentice donated $10 to an alignment alive with refugees in Massachusetts.
["400px"]"I appetite them to accept a allusive amphitheater experience," von Rosenvinge said. "It is not actuality on date in apparel and beneath the lights. It is about alarming the admirers to anticipate about the apple abnormally and authoritative abiding casting associates airing abroad alive article they never accomplished before."
Jonathan Phelps can be accomplished at 508-626-4338 or jphelps@wickedlocal.com. Follow him on Twitter @JPhelps_MW.
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