The Patchwork Girl of Oz: A Review
I had the opportunity to assistant direct, line coach, and operate a spotlight for the Lewistown Community High School production of The Patchwork Girl of Oz. This was our Spring Musical. We put it up March 11th, 12th, and 13th. And we didn't lose a single performance to COVID.
I should have reviewed this weeks ago, I suppose, but then that would have meant I was completely putting the show behind me. And I jealously guard having the presence of this wonderful production in my life, just as I ate the caramel pecan clusters and drank the Peace Teas slowly that were a gift from the cast.
Set within the extended universe of The Wizard of Oz, and based on one of the novels in L. Frank Baum's series, The Patchwork Girl of Oz is about a poor little boy named Ojo and his Unc Nunkie, and they set off on a quest to Oz to find food. For Ojo's part, he gets sidetracked when Unc Nunkie turns to stone. He has to get a potion to reverse the effect that the powder of petrification had on his Unc. And this will involve bringing along the just-brought-to-life Patchwork Girl.
While they don't run into every single character from the Wizard of Oz, there are enough cameos to draw in the Wizard of Oz fan. There was plenty to please my younger sister, Jen, when she came to see the Sunday matinee on March 13th.
Leilah Wilcox portrayed Ojo the Unlucky, wanting to have real food, unhappy to have stale toast on the bread tree outside. I loved that Kyleigh Schrock took over the part of Unc Nunkie. Really, she had covered for the part at so many rehearsals that I had started to envision her as the originator of the part pretty early on. Had the actor arrived to assume the role, it would have been an adjustment. Kyleigh proved herself capable right from the start. Ojo got some great laughs with her well-rehearsed line delivery. She knew how to sound like a boy, remarkably, since she's very female in person. She also managed to bring the childlike factor. When she hits her late in the 2nd act monologue line about all of the things they had to do and all of the places they had to go on their journey into the kingdom of Oz, she starts speaking in a rapid fire fashion, just bouncing around the stage and gesturing to the Yoop, Scraps, the Scarecrow, the Shaggy Man, and the Tin Man (though both were played by Brennan Grove, so I think at that moment he was the Tin Man). It was a really nice way of summing up her character. As Caleb Johnson mentioned while sitting in on a rehearsal, Leilah was like a four year old telling you about her day. She was charming.
One of the prevailing critical praises shared with me by students, staff, parents, and community members alike was how just spectacular Jaden Kelch and Dalton Kerr were in their respective roles. And each of them did have to tackle multiple roles in this production.
Kelch, for his part, spent the better part of February and early March committing to memory the many lines he had as the character Professor Pipt. It is Professor Pipt who has the secret ingredients necessary to bring the patchwork ragdoll to life that he acquired from Mombi the witch. He has a great scene with Brianna Thompson in the third scene of the play. He refuses to give the witch the Life Potion that he has so laboriously been brewing for the past several years.
Ojo and Unc Nunkie arrive at Professor Pipt's lair. They are hoping to get the recipe for a potion to grow more food from their trees. The toast tree that grows outside their house is running out of bread. They happen upon Pipt just as he's attempting to use the Powder of Life on the patchwork ragdoll. Unfortunately, the Powder of Petrefication accidentally falls on Unc Nunkie in all the excitement, and he freezes into a marble statue.
But oh, we get Aleah Grove come to life as the Patchwork Doll in this moment. And she really was a doll. I mean by that that she was a darling. She had the right amount of spunk and cleverness (Professor Pipt had added a dash of extra cleverness to her, for even slaves and housekeepers must have their share of wits, he deduces).
Once Ojo and Scraps the Patchwork Girl have set out on their big journey, we see Scraps start to sing a ballad called Patchwork Moonlight. She's too excited to sleep once nightfall comes. And I know how hard Aleah worked on this song. It was full of key changes, irregular downbeats, eighth notes that were sung in rapid fire succession before another eighth note came dotted or tied to another eighth note in the next measure, meaning it was like a quarter note. And she did this all while dancing, while wearing elaborate colored make-up, while wearing heels. She has a quiet demeanor, but when she gets on stage, like she did during Musical Mayhem, I saw how great she could be when she was out of her shell. I wanted to see her get lines. Her sister Odessa, likewise, really blossomed in Musical Mayhem, as well as that one Annie rehearsal where she understudied for Molly in 2018.
The first acquaintance they make on the road is Bo Cloako, played by Dalton Kerr. Then they eventually make the acquaintance of the One and Only Woozy, played by Alex Kelch. He gets a bluesy solo. He agrees to go with them, because his alternative is being kept in a crate, where they don't even feed him any bumble bees. But he discovers some other delicacies that are almost as good. Kelch stole some scenes here, just as he did with Once Upon a Time and Very Far Away: A Cinderella Story in 2020.
They stumble upon the Munchkin Farm Girls. They are furious that the Woozy may be let out of his cage. So Ojo and the Patchwork Girl have to do some quick thinking to justfiy taking him out of captivity. He goes with them, and no bumblebees get eaten.
Next, they happen upon the Mangaboos. Kennedy Sidwell played the Mangaboo Prime Minister. Ojo, Scraps, and Woozy make the mistake of thinking that these plants are inanimate organisms, and wouldn't mind if they were to swipe one leaf or two for dinner. But no, this is Oz, where anything at any moment could potentially come to life. And messing with said plants means consequences. Thus comes the musical number "Everybody Greets You in the Garden." The Mangaboo Prime Minister and the Princess of the Mangaboos, played by Tiffany Carlin, take it upon themselves to plant Ojo, Scraps, and Woozy in the ground. Water them. Feed them. And eat them. The Twilight Zone episode To Serve Man came to mind. So how do they get out of that. I will say that Leilah Wilcox's whined line "I Don't Want to Be Eaten" was a famously funny line in the work, easily as funny as Kelch and Kerr's hilarious staged antics, and even their outtakes from rehearsals. Everything in this production was vibrant, seemed almost improvised, and was emblematic of the possibilities of invention with live theater.
Then there's the Shaggy Man, played by Brennan Grove. I've been a fan of Brennan Grove's since I saw him play the Sheriff of Nottingham in a Playhouse production of Hood the Musical in 2019. The show is going great before he arrives, and he's a breath of fresh air for an already well-oiled machine. Caleb Johnson offered extensive praise to him at the Monday night rehearsal, when there were some parts of the show that were going off the rails. Brennan came prepared, character developed, and everyone else sort of fell into place alongside him once he set the mood and tone. He gave them a lead to follow. And everyone onstage seemed to love the Shaggy Mobile number when it came up. I loved it too. I was singing along to it while operating the spotlight.
Now this is not to take anything away from the rest of the cast. Mind you, the hiccups that we experienced on Monday were dealt with and dispensed of by opening night.
I would go so far as to say that I enjoyed every minute of working on this production.
I loved it when Isabella Cooper stepped out as the Scarecrow for her first big musical number. She was pretty much off book from the first time she debuted that at rehearsal.
I loved it when Dalton Kerr took the stage as Bo-Joko, and sang the song "Hoppers Are the Best." For all of the characters that he plays in this piece of work, this was the only character that had its own solo musical number.
I absolutely loved Kennedy Sidwell's graceful performance as Ozma, the Princess of Oz. I loved that she got to stay sweet and understanding, even while she was negotiating with a very no-nonsense, blunt, straightforward Patchwork Girl Scraps. I loved the interaction between Aleah Grove and Kennedy Sidwell in that moment. I loved that Ozma was torn between upholding the rules and principles of Oz, and giving a fair shake to the poor farmer's nephew who had come all the way to Oz to find a cure for his uncle's petrification, only to be arrested by a soldier for his efforts. Some background, though, the ingredients that Ojo the Unlucky, Scraps, and in due time the Woozy and Scarecrow are working to find include three hairs from the tail of the said Woozy, a six leaf clover, pure oil from a human being's body and a pail of silver water from a dark well. ♫ But the magic won't be ready til you supply... the left hand wing of a yellow butterfly.♫
picking a six leaf clover in Oz is, for what it's worth, illegal. This is how Ojo gets himself arrested in the first place by One of Ozma's guard, played by Jaden Kelch.
In Act 2, Leilah Wilcox as Ojo has this terrific musical number, "Great To Be Small." Over the course of the song, she winds up stomping or kicking Jaden Kelch at least four times. Each time, he full-on ate it. I guess it's a tradition of the Lewistown Community High School that somebody eats it, wipes out, face plant, or otherwise falls in dramatic or spectacular fashion. Except that when Kade Peirce did so as the dog in Once Upon a Time and Very Far Away in March of 2020, it was not planned, it made a terrible thud, and you could hear an audible "ooooh" from the corwd.
In the case of Kelch, and we had some conversations about this, he was going out of his way to fall hard and intentionally. The very first night that he was pulling these antics, I unapologetically laughed my head off.
All the while working on this play, I was hoping that there wouldn't be another outbreak of COVID. I was hoping that for all of the effort that we had put into this masterpiece, it would have to be streamed, performed for an audience set at two guests per actor, or cancelled altogether. We honestly didn't know early in production. We had an outbreak of COVID early in 2022, and I had to move a home Scholastic Bowl meet to Bushnell. Lewistown still got to host the County Tournament. But in light of having to move an IHSA sanctioned event to another town, then I had that twitch in my neck telling me that all of this wonderful talent, rehearsal time, skill enhancement, entertainment value, hard work and effort would have gone to waste.
I was so very happy that we got to put this beautiful show before an audience.
Will Scraps and Ojo manage to get all of the ingredients to make the potion of petrification? Will The Tin Man be able to provide them any help with the Pure Oil from a Human Being's Body? And what about the Left Hand Wing of a Yellow Butterfly? Will Tin-Man let them take that from a poor, defenseless creature?
This film was filled with whimsy, flight and fancy. I loved helping to line coach, spotlight, and otherwise assist with The Patchwork Girl of Oz. Excellent work by Director Susie Lafary, music director Melinda Reed (much thanks for making the folder available on Google Classroom so that students could access the files of accompaniment music from home), Choreographer Susie Lafary and her choreography instructor Aleah Grove, double duty for both Lafary and Grove. I don't mind saying it was a bit difficult trying to record on Audacity. I tried to record Dalton singing his Yoop song. And we did, and we were able to have the track of the accompaniment faintly in the background. And again I owe thanks to Melinda Reed for recording him singing the Yoop's part on her computer, and doing some tricks with Audacity to give it an echo.
Oh, that's right- footnote- Dalton Kerr took upon himself yet another role, that of The Yoop, at the very last minute. This required him to actually change costumes right onstage from Bo-Crocko, who guarded the well where the Yoop resided; to playing the Yoop himself. Some of the dialogue was easily put on paper in front of him in the well. But he ultimately was able to deliver his hauntingly hilarious lines from the wings. Those he did live after Melinda or her sound assistant, Chelsey Hopkins, clicked play on The Yoop song.
Also thanks to Kyleigh Schrock for pulling double duty, serving as both a stage manager and on-stage actor in this show! This is the first time in nearly 29 years of doing theater where I have seen a person succeed in the precarious balance of carrying out both roles. She stepped into the role of Unc Nunkie, as mentioned, and filled it out spectacularly well.
Thanks also to Caleb Johnson for bailing us out and taking notes on the night that Mrs. Lafary was sick with the stomach flu. He was between productions of The Spongebob Squarepants Musical and Tecumsah, and he made time to come out to Lewistown to help us out.
This was the first show with which I was involved in 2022. I've got a couple more coming. I will have a post upcoming this summer where I talk at length about the switcheroo that has happened with my summer. But I'm going to wait to talk about the production of which I was a casualty and an opportunity cost until after it has gone up.
I should have reviewed this weeks ago, I suppose, but then that would have meant I was completely putting the show behind me. And I jealously guard having the presence of this wonderful production in my life, just as I ate the caramel pecan clusters and drank the Peace Teas slowly that were a gift from the cast.
Set within the extended universe of The Wizard of Oz, and based on one of the novels in L. Frank Baum's series, The Patchwork Girl of Oz is about a poor little boy named Ojo and his Unc Nunkie, and they set off on a quest to Oz to find food. For Ojo's part, he gets sidetracked when Unc Nunkie turns to stone. He has to get a potion to reverse the effect that the powder of petrification had on his Unc. And this will involve bringing along the just-brought-to-life Patchwork Girl.
While they don't run into every single character from the Wizard of Oz, there are enough cameos to draw in the Wizard of Oz fan. There was plenty to please my younger sister, Jen, when she came to see the Sunday matinee on March 13th.
Leilah Wilcox portrayed Ojo the Unlucky, wanting to have real food, unhappy to have stale toast on the bread tree outside. I loved that Kyleigh Schrock took over the part of Unc Nunkie. Really, she had covered for the part at so many rehearsals that I had started to envision her as the originator of the part pretty early on. Had the actor arrived to assume the role, it would have been an adjustment. Kyleigh proved herself capable right from the start. Ojo got some great laughs with her well-rehearsed line delivery. She knew how to sound like a boy, remarkably, since she's very female in person. She also managed to bring the childlike factor. When she hits her late in the 2nd act monologue line about all of the things they had to do and all of the places they had to go on their journey into the kingdom of Oz, she starts speaking in a rapid fire fashion, just bouncing around the stage and gesturing to the Yoop, Scraps, the Scarecrow, the Shaggy Man, and the Tin Man (though both were played by Brennan Grove, so I think at that moment he was the Tin Man). It was a really nice way of summing up her character. As Caleb Johnson mentioned while sitting in on a rehearsal, Leilah was like a four year old telling you about her day. She was charming.
One of the prevailing critical praises shared with me by students, staff, parents, and community members alike was how just spectacular Jaden Kelch and Dalton Kerr were in their respective roles. And each of them did have to tackle multiple roles in this production.
Kelch, for his part, spent the better part of February and early March committing to memory the many lines he had as the character Professor Pipt. It is Professor Pipt who has the secret ingredients necessary to bring the patchwork ragdoll to life that he acquired from Mombi the witch. He has a great scene with Brianna Thompson in the third scene of the play. He refuses to give the witch the Life Potion that he has so laboriously been brewing for the past several years.
Ojo and Unc Nunkie arrive at Professor Pipt's lair. They are hoping to get the recipe for a potion to grow more food from their trees. The toast tree that grows outside their house is running out of bread. They happen upon Pipt just as he's attempting to use the Powder of Life on the patchwork ragdoll. Unfortunately, the Powder of Petrefication accidentally falls on Unc Nunkie in all the excitement, and he freezes into a marble statue.
But oh, we get Aleah Grove come to life as the Patchwork Doll in this moment. And she really was a doll. I mean by that that she was a darling. She had the right amount of spunk and cleverness (Professor Pipt had added a dash of extra cleverness to her, for even slaves and housekeepers must have their share of wits, he deduces).
Once Ojo and Scraps the Patchwork Girl have set out on their big journey, we see Scraps start to sing a ballad called Patchwork Moonlight. She's too excited to sleep once nightfall comes. And I know how hard Aleah worked on this song. It was full of key changes, irregular downbeats, eighth notes that were sung in rapid fire succession before another eighth note came dotted or tied to another eighth note in the next measure, meaning it was like a quarter note. And she did this all while dancing, while wearing elaborate colored make-up, while wearing heels. She has a quiet demeanor, but when she gets on stage, like she did during Musical Mayhem, I saw how great she could be when she was out of her shell. I wanted to see her get lines. Her sister Odessa, likewise, really blossomed in Musical Mayhem, as well as that one Annie rehearsal where she understudied for Molly in 2018.
The first acquaintance they make on the road is Bo Cloako, played by Dalton Kerr. Then they eventually make the acquaintance of the One and Only Woozy, played by Alex Kelch. He gets a bluesy solo. He agrees to go with them, because his alternative is being kept in a crate, where they don't even feed him any bumble bees. But he discovers some other delicacies that are almost as good. Kelch stole some scenes here, just as he did with Once Upon a Time and Very Far Away: A Cinderella Story in 2020.
They stumble upon the Munchkin Farm Girls. They are furious that the Woozy may be let out of his cage. So Ojo and the Patchwork Girl have to do some quick thinking to justfiy taking him out of captivity. He goes with them, and no bumblebees get eaten.
Next, they happen upon the Mangaboos. Kennedy Sidwell played the Mangaboo Prime Minister. Ojo, Scraps, and Woozy make the mistake of thinking that these plants are inanimate organisms, and wouldn't mind if they were to swipe one leaf or two for dinner. But no, this is Oz, where anything at any moment could potentially come to life. And messing with said plants means consequences. Thus comes the musical number "Everybody Greets You in the Garden." The Mangaboo Prime Minister and the Princess of the Mangaboos, played by Tiffany Carlin, take it upon themselves to plant Ojo, Scraps, and Woozy in the ground. Water them. Feed them. And eat them. The Twilight Zone episode To Serve Man came to mind. So how do they get out of that. I will say that Leilah Wilcox's whined line "I Don't Want to Be Eaten" was a famously funny line in the work, easily as funny as Kelch and Kerr's hilarious staged antics, and even their outtakes from rehearsals. Everything in this production was vibrant, seemed almost improvised, and was emblematic of the possibilities of invention with live theater.
Then there's the Shaggy Man, played by Brennan Grove. I've been a fan of Brennan Grove's since I saw him play the Sheriff of Nottingham in a Playhouse production of Hood the Musical in 2019. The show is going great before he arrives, and he's a breath of fresh air for an already well-oiled machine. Caleb Johnson offered extensive praise to him at the Monday night rehearsal, when there were some parts of the show that were going off the rails. Brennan came prepared, character developed, and everyone else sort of fell into place alongside him once he set the mood and tone. He gave them a lead to follow. And everyone onstage seemed to love the Shaggy Mobile number when it came up. I loved it too. I was singing along to it while operating the spotlight.
Now this is not to take anything away from the rest of the cast. Mind you, the hiccups that we experienced on Monday were dealt with and dispensed of by opening night.
I would go so far as to say that I enjoyed every minute of working on this production.
I loved it when Isabella Cooper stepped out as the Scarecrow for her first big musical number. She was pretty much off book from the first time she debuted that at rehearsal.
I loved it when Dalton Kerr took the stage as Bo-Joko, and sang the song "Hoppers Are the Best." For all of the characters that he plays in this piece of work, this was the only character that had its own solo musical number.
I absolutely loved Kennedy Sidwell's graceful performance as Ozma, the Princess of Oz. I loved that she got to stay sweet and understanding, even while she was negotiating with a very no-nonsense, blunt, straightforward Patchwork Girl Scraps. I loved the interaction between Aleah Grove and Kennedy Sidwell in that moment. I loved that Ozma was torn between upholding the rules and principles of Oz, and giving a fair shake to the poor farmer's nephew who had come all the way to Oz to find a cure for his uncle's petrification, only to be arrested by a soldier for his efforts. Some background, though, the ingredients that Ojo the Unlucky, Scraps, and in due time the Woozy and Scarecrow are working to find include three hairs from the tail of the said Woozy, a six leaf clover, pure oil from a human being's body and a pail of silver water from a dark well. ♫ But the magic won't be ready til you supply... the left hand wing of a yellow butterfly.♫
picking a six leaf clover in Oz is, for what it's worth, illegal. This is how Ojo gets himself arrested in the first place by One of Ozma's guard, played by Jaden Kelch.
In Act 2, Leilah Wilcox as Ojo has this terrific musical number, "Great To Be Small." Over the course of the song, she winds up stomping or kicking Jaden Kelch at least four times. Each time, he full-on ate it. I guess it's a tradition of the Lewistown Community High School that somebody eats it, wipes out, face plant, or otherwise falls in dramatic or spectacular fashion. Except that when Kade Peirce did so as the dog in Once Upon a Time and Very Far Away in March of 2020, it was not planned, it made a terrible thud, and you could hear an audible "ooooh" from the corwd.
In the case of Kelch, and we had some conversations about this, he was going out of his way to fall hard and intentionally. The very first night that he was pulling these antics, I unapologetically laughed my head off.
All the while working on this play, I was hoping that there wouldn't be another outbreak of COVID. I was hoping that for all of the effort that we had put into this masterpiece, it would have to be streamed, performed for an audience set at two guests per actor, or cancelled altogether. We honestly didn't know early in production. We had an outbreak of COVID early in 2022, and I had to move a home Scholastic Bowl meet to Bushnell. Lewistown still got to host the County Tournament. But in light of having to move an IHSA sanctioned event to another town, then I had that twitch in my neck telling me that all of this wonderful talent, rehearsal time, skill enhancement, entertainment value, hard work and effort would have gone to waste.
I was so very happy that we got to put this beautiful show before an audience.
Will Scraps and Ojo manage to get all of the ingredients to make the potion of petrification? Will The Tin Man be able to provide them any help with the Pure Oil from a Human Being's Body? And what about the Left Hand Wing of a Yellow Butterfly? Will Tin-Man let them take that from a poor, defenseless creature?
This film was filled with whimsy, flight and fancy. I loved helping to line coach, spotlight, and otherwise assist with The Patchwork Girl of Oz. Excellent work by Director Susie Lafary, music director Melinda Reed (much thanks for making the folder available on Google Classroom so that students could access the files of accompaniment music from home), Choreographer Susie Lafary and her choreography instructor Aleah Grove, double duty for both Lafary and Grove. I don't mind saying it was a bit difficult trying to record on Audacity. I tried to record Dalton singing his Yoop song. And we did, and we were able to have the track of the accompaniment faintly in the background. And again I owe thanks to Melinda Reed for recording him singing the Yoop's part on her computer, and doing some tricks with Audacity to give it an echo.
Oh, that's right- footnote- Dalton Kerr took upon himself yet another role, that of The Yoop, at the very last minute. This required him to actually change costumes right onstage from Bo-Crocko, who guarded the well where the Yoop resided; to playing the Yoop himself. Some of the dialogue was easily put on paper in front of him in the well. But he ultimately was able to deliver his hauntingly hilarious lines from the wings. Those he did live after Melinda or her sound assistant, Chelsey Hopkins, clicked play on The Yoop song.
Also thanks to Kyleigh Schrock for pulling double duty, serving as both a stage manager and on-stage actor in this show! This is the first time in nearly 29 years of doing theater where I have seen a person succeed in the precarious balance of carrying out both roles. She stepped into the role of Unc Nunkie, as mentioned, and filled it out spectacularly well.
Thanks also to Caleb Johnson for bailing us out and taking notes on the night that Mrs. Lafary was sick with the stomach flu. He was between productions of The Spongebob Squarepants Musical and Tecumsah, and he made time to come out to Lewistown to help us out.
This was the first show with which I was involved in 2022. I've got a couple more coming. I will have a post upcoming this summer where I talk at length about the switcheroo that has happened with my summer. But I'm going to wait to talk about the production of which I was a casualty and an opportunity cost until after it has gone up.