Junior Theatre’s ‘Pippi’ brings strength in numbers

by Charlene Baldridge

SDUN Theatre Critic

San Diego Junior Theatre is important because it has been staging plays and musicals since 1948 – that’s 62 years of inspiring children. Not all went on to fame like singer/actor Brian Stokes Mitchell, or became as famous and infamous as Dennis Hopper or as successful as Christian Hoch, but lives were changed. Perhaps especially the lives of those who didn’t necessarily go into theater as professionals.

Through March 21 at the Casa del Prado Theatre in Balboa Park, guest director Rayme Sciaroni is staging a huge company of kids in “Pippi Longstocking,” which is based on Astrid Lindgren’s classic children’s stories about a 9-year-old girl. The setting has been moved from Sweden to an American seaboard town.

The theater piece (not the musical version here, through Sciaroni provides mood-setting music) concerns a physically strong, obstreperous child named Pippi (Madeleine Williams), whose mother is “with the angels” and whose pirate father is at sea. When the father is lost at sea, Pippi sets up housekeeping at the home he purchased, Villa Villekulla. She lives with her pets, a horse named Old Man and a monkey named Mr. Nilsson, and survives from a suitcase of gold coins her dad left her. Completely resistant to adult authority, Pippi enjoys putting down pompous adults.

Pippi’s a real pip, and with her tomboy ways and free spirit attracts two neighbor children, Annika and Tommy Settergren (Kailey Berry and Nathan Cooper) who live nearby. Word of the lone child’s presence in the Victorian town spreads, and she soon attracts a child welfare officer as well. Pippi lasts only one day at school and lays waste to Mrs. Settergren’s coffee party, and just as she is about to be taken to a children’s home, Capt. Longstocking (Trenton Austin) pulls up in his pirate ship to take her away. Will she leave her friends?

At the near sellout matinee performance Sunday, March 7, children and their parents had a boisterous time and so did the student actors, who number 56. Cynthia Bloodgood’s Villa resembles the yellow Swedish Victorian used in the film. The house folds out to reveal its interior and several locales in the town. Mallory Devlin’s costumes are adorable and so is the life-size Mr. Nilsson puppet, which neighs delightfully. Other designers are Conor McQueen (sound), Matthew Novotny (lighting) and Walter Allen (hair and makeup design).u

Pippi Longstocking

Through March 21

Fridays 7 p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays, 2 p.m.

Casa del Prado Theatre

1650 El Prado (off Park Blvd.)

$8-$14

juniortheatre.com
239-8355