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Saige Kleyman insisted she and her cast mates are doing some scary dancing in “The Nightmare Before Christmas.”
When asked for a demonstration, the 10-year-old girl from Bear Creek turned sideways and struck a pose, stretching her hands like claws before a recent rehearsal at the Phoenix Performing Arts Centre in Duryea.
OK, we get it. Her stance did look a bit menacing — but in a fun way, rather than a scary way.
“I don’t think this show is scary at all,” director Lee Lachette said with a amused smile.
The rest of the young dancers/thespians, who will appear in the show tonight through Oct. 27, seemed to agree. By a show of hands some indicated being part of “The Nightmare Before Christmas” is as much of a lark as trick-or-treating.
Some said it’s even more fun.
“It’s awesome,” said ensemble member Morgan Cookus-Gnoinski, 12, of Wilkes-Barre.
Among the show’s awesome elements are the costumes. The young woman who portrays mad scientist Dr. Finkelstein, for example, has a helmet she can remove to reveal Finkelstein’s genius brain. The young woman who portrays rag dall Sally has an “arm” and “leg” that fall off — but she can sew them on again. And, thanks to Lachette’s ingenuity with a bucket, the mayor of Pumpkin Town has a rotatable face mask that looks happy on one side and sad on the other.
“He’s happy more than sad,” said Ryaha Rose Olecki, 17, of Scranton, who plays the mayor.
Another awesome aspect of the show is the performance by Amanda Hunish-Hall of Moosic, a grown-up dancer who assisted Lachette with the choreography. Hunish-Hall portrays Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King who ventures into Christmas Town and wants to borrow some of the December holiday’s traditions.
“He’s getting bored with Halloween,” explained Hunish-Hall, who wears special white gloves that elongate her hands.
But what just about everyone in Pumpkin Town will realize, cast member Brady O’Boyle, 12, of Pittston said, is that it’s best not to mix holidays like Christmas and Halloween but enjoy them separately. “You’ve got two polar opposites,” said “Boyle, who portrays a red-suited, white-bearded gentleman that Jack Skellington calls “Sandy Claws.”
Speaking of sharp objects like claws, the script called for three impish creatures to work for the Oogie-Boogie, or bogeyman villain of the show. Their names are Lock, Shock and Barrel. Rounding out Oogie-Boogie’s crew of henchmen, Lachette added Gnaw, Claw and Scratch.
Come to think of it, if you opened your door on Halloween night and saw Lock, Shock, Barrel, Gnaw, Claw, Scratch and the rest of the cast, you probably would be afraid — afraid you might run out of candy bars.
