BTE presents free outdoor performances at Bloomsburg park
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If you’re wondering what kind of kid would be spunky enough to eat a spikey, prickly cactus, maybe you’d like to meet Sheila, the 8-year-old title character in the Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble’s summer play.
What’s Sheila like?
“If you could reach up and grab the sun — and not burn your hands off — and pull it down and wrap it up in a little body with constantly tangled hair, some missing teeth, a laugh that shook windows to almost breaking, and eyes that let that inside sunshine BLAST out … THAT was Sheila.”
At least, that’s how the “Dust Cloud” narrator describes her in “The Girl Who Swallowed a Cactus,” which BTE will present Thursday, July 15 through Saturday, July 31, outdoors and with free admission, in the “Totsburg” section of Bloomsburg Town Park.
Totsburg features a lot of playground equipment, and the cast of adults — who mostly are playing children, except for Violet Race, who voices the Dust Cloud, and James Goode, who portrays a coyote — will be climbing over, under and around a lot of it.
“You can see their ‘inner child’ come out,” director Elizabeth Dowd said before a recent rehearsal.
Amy Rene Bryne has the role of Sheila, and said the six years of gymnastics she practiced earlier in life have prepared her for the climbing and scampering the play requires.
Sheila is a natural leader within her band of friends, which includes Eric Wunsch as Dennis, who is “as strong as three third-graders put together,” Andrew Hubatsek as Leon, who is clever and good with his hands, and Lily Eliza Wirth, who portrays a set of twins known as Shy and Eager.
How can one actor play two twins? It’s easy when one of the twins is represented by a discarded tennis racquet that Wirth carries everywhere.
The play, written by Eric Coble, was designed as a one-person show, Dowd said. But the script is flexible, so she was able to include more people. It’s also set in the desert of New Mexico.
… Or is it?
Sheila and her friends believe they’re in New Mexico. But when they meet a talkative coyote who snags the orange cone they used to decorate their fort/treehouse/castle, he informs them they’re “in SandRockSunMoonHillsShade.”
He also lets them know he’s annoyed at them, and at “Two Legs” in general, for not sufficiently respecting the natural environment and the animals who live there.
As leader of the animals, the coyote is ready to unleash his anger — until these young Two Legs pass some difficult tests and begin to earn his “tiniest, eensiest, weensiest speck of respect.”
In order to meet one challenge, Dennis walks on stilts. And, to meet another challenge, Sheila will swallow a cactus. To find out how she manages to do that without “turning her insides into confetti,” you can visit the park for one of the performances, which begin July 15.
Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday shows begin at 11 a.m. and Friday and Saturday shows at 7 p.m.
Though admission is free — thanks to the Columbia County Commissioners and Renco Ace Hardware — anyone with special seating requests as well as large groups are encouraged to contact the BTE Box Office at 570-784-8181, or [email protected].
“The Girl Who Swallowed a Cactus” will mark the final time founding Ensemble member James Goode appears in a show as a full-time member of the company.
“I feel ready,” he said earlier this week. “It’s time to bring in new blood with fresh ideas.”