I love high school theatre. I love seeing the kids up on the stage indulging in that ultimate fantasy: to become, for just a couple hours, an entirely different person and live that person’s life, speak that person’s words and feel — and emote — that person’s emotions. 

The more students I see populating a stage, the more I love the show because it means all the more young people being exposed to one of the most embracing of the performing arts. Each of them, no matter how seemingly small the role, knows their character is an integral part of the story and has made the decision to commit himself or herself to the success of the evening. And such is the case with “It’s a Wonderful Life,” the beloved Frank Capra film unfolding in real life on the Pear Tyner Auditorium stage at Crestview High School.

Director and drama teacher Annette Gebhardt has assembled a likable, enthusiastic cast of 43 students, ranging in age from middle school to kids from her own high school classes. Together the youthful performers become the population of Bedford Falls and share in the telling of the story of George Bailey as he approaches the most critical night of his life.

The minimalist streetscape set — whether intentional or not — effectively turned the focus of the performance almost exclusively on the young performers and their story, and was far more effective than had every store’s façade been rendered in minute detail.

Many of the young thespians who appear in the play are old friends from previous productions. It’s always fun to see them mature as actors before many of them, bitten by the stage bug, move on to major in theatre in college. But in this early stage of their careers, it’s a rare treat indeed when a couple suddenly find that magic whatsis and make the transition from kid-acting-a-part to actor-being-a-character.

In “It’s a Wonderful Life,” that has happened to Ryan Vance, who plays George Bailey, and Brittany Agee, who plays his longtime girlfriend and then wife, Mary Hatch Bailey. Somewhere, shortly after the curtain opened on Act II, I was no longer watching another enjoyable performance by Ryan and Brittany. I was watching George and Mary’s soap opera of a life, and both young performers are to be commended for making that critical leap into actorhood.

There were other standouts in the show that contributed to the large audience’s enjoyment of the familiar holiday favorite. Mac Sticha as the angel (second class, sans wings) Clarence Odbody and his brother, Zac Sticha, as Uncle Billy both played critical roles and ably plunged into their parts. While one can’t help but compare their performances to those of Henry Travers and Thomas Mitchell in the 1946 film, it was satisfying to see the boys making a conscientious effort to interpret the characters in their own way, just as Ryan and Brittany divorced themselves from James Stewart and Donna Reed’s performances.

Other standouts included Briana Schiro as Violet Peterson, Courtney Jones as Aunt Tilly, Jonathan Baughman as Mr. Potter, and Alex Andrews and Jeff Linares as Bert and Ernie. It was great to see the quartet of youngsters playing George and Mary’s kids — Abby Keiffer, Ty Gebhardt, Vince Lancaster and Emily Keiffer —  adding a bit of age appropriateness to the roles. As much as I willingly suspend reality when attending student productions, it’s always toughest trying to reconcile a high school student portraying a young ‘un against his peers. 

Kudos to Gebhardt for not just adding this enjoyable touch, but also for giving younger kids a taste of the footlights. With her daughter Madeline as assistant director, Bridget Worth as tech director and a tech crew list as long as the cast list (including a couple guys manhandling the Frankensteinian light cage: won’t some wealthy alumnus please donate some decent tech equipment for these stellar productions?), “It’s a Wonderful Life” is a wonderful evening of local theatre. 

How wonderful? I got sniffy and teary-eyed at the warmhearted ending. That means everybody on the stage was doing their job.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: 'A Wonderful Life' at Crestview High: Review

NICEVILLE — The Northwest Florida Ballet will once again grace the stage with visions of dancing sugar plums, graceful snow flurries and magical dolls in its 32nd annual presentation of “The Nutcracker.” Performances will be at the Mattie Kelly Arts Center at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 17 and 2:30 p.m. Nov. 18. Tickets are $28 for adults and $14 for children 12 and under and are available online at www.nfballet.org or by calling 664-7787.

“The Nutcracker”has been an annual favorite for thousands of families all over the world. Although it was first performed to Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s captivating score in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1892, the first American production of the ballet wasn’t introduced until 1944 by the San Francisco Ballet.

In addition to more than 100 company dancers, including Ellie Borick dancing Clara and Lucas Meyers playing the high-spirited Fritz, principal guest artists Zoica Tovar and Andres Estevez of BalletMet, Columbus, Ohio, will perform the leading roles of the Sugar Plum Fairy and Cavalier.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: ‘The Nutcracker’ Nov. 17 & 18 at arts center

NICEVILLE — Part romance, part twisted fairy tale, and all irreverent fun for everyone, “Shrek: The Musical” runs 7:30 p.m. at the Mattie Kelly Arts Center. The national touring Broadway show brings characters from the Oscar-winning DreamWorks animated film to the stage in a family-friendly production.

Noted by critics as “good-hearted and warped just enough,” this 2009 musical comedy tells the tale of Shrek, a swamp-dwelling ogre, who goes on a life-changing adventure to reclaim his swamp’s deed. Along the way, a wisecracking donkey who soon becomes his best friend joins the unlikely hero. He also fights a fearsome dragon, rescues the feisty princess Fiona and learns that real friendship and true love aren't only found in fairy tales.

Tickets cost $45 each and are available from the box office by phone, online or in-person. Contact 729-6000 or visit www.mattiekellyartscenter.org

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: ‘Shrek: The Musical’ Nov. 19 in Niceville

CRESTVIEW — When Abbie and Martha Brewster toddled into their living room on a recent afternoon, they had to abruptly stop in their tracks. The actresses playing the spinster sisters had forgotten there had been a set reconfiguration.

“We just have to adjust to a door move,” Sandra Peters, who plays Abbie, said. “We had to move it from there (pointing stage right) to there (stage left).”

She and Ashleigh Gonyea ran back to their marks as actors Sean Peters, Sandra’s husband, and Jack Barr, a Crestview High School senior, delivered the women’s cue again.

Such are the challenges of bringing a play off the script’s pages and onto the stage, and Crestview’s fledgling community theatre members take in stride whatever hiccups occur before the opening night curtain.

“Arsenic and Old Lace,” the classic American dark comedy of gangsters, spinster murderesses and a loony brother who thinks he’s Teddy Roosevelt, runs 7:30 p.m. Nov. 16-17 and 3 p.m. Nov. 16 at Warriors Hall, 201 Stillwell Ave. Tickets – which cost $10 for adults, $5 for kids under 12 — are available at Journey Java Connection in Crestview, at the door before performances or by calling 398-8814.

The Peterses are the driving force behind the troupe’s formation. When the couple arrived in Crestview following Sean Peters’ assignment to start Journey Methodist Church, they were surprised to discover their new home lacked community theatre, Sandra, “Arsenic’s” assistant director, said.

After helping in the spring Crestview High School drama production of “The Sound of Music,” the couple marshaled supporters and launched the community-wide troupe.

“We’re not even legit yet,” Sandra Peters said, laughing. “We haven’t even thought of a name.”

A week before the curtain rises Nov. 16, the cast is off-book, she said. While actors rehearse in the back meeting room at the couple’s coffee shop, crewmembers have built sets for today’s move-in at Warriors Hall.

“The pieces we build are pieces we can reuse in future productions, so it’ll be a good investment,” Sandra Peters said.

Local reaction to the community theatre troupe’s formation has been positive, she said.

“I just had a couple come in here and buy tickets,” Sandra Peters said. “They asked where the proceeds are going and we said they’re going to start a Crestview community theatre and they said, ‘Oh gosh, we’ve needed that.’ We’ve heard that from everybody. We’ve also heard from people who are interested in being actors or helping on the crew, so that’s been good, too.”

If producing a show isn’t complicated enough, doing so while launching a theatrical production company is an even greater challenge, Peters said.

“We are jumping over hurdles. It’s sometimes a little frustrating but we’ll get through it,” she said. “We’d just love to have a space that would be more suitable, but we’re making do with what we have. But we would eventually love to have a space that better suits us.”

The Peterses have visited the historic Fox Theatre downtown and covet its large stage, spacious wings, dressing rooms and fly space. However, the building is still undergoing renovation by owner Mickey Rytman, and may not be completed for a couple of years, Sandra Peters said.

Meanwhile, she said in true theatre spirit, “the show will go on” wherever the new company can find performance space — with sponsors’ backing.

“The main thing is to get this show done and out there and show the public what we can do and then get some support,” Sandra Peters said.

Contact News Bulletin Arts & Entertainment Editor Brian Hughes at 850-682-6524 or brianh@crestviewbulletin.com. Follow him on Twitter @cnbBrian.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: ‘Arsenic and Old Lace’ could restart Crestview community theatre

I didn’t mean to be a James Bond enthusiast. I never thought I’d drop quotes from 007 films in conversation with fellow enthusiasts, or have one-sheets from Bond films on the wall of my office, or make a mix of dinner music from Bond film soundtracks to play when we have guests to supper.

Lately I've been driving my colleagues Bond-crazy, playing the soundtrack albums, redecorating the men's bathroom with vintage 007 film lobby cards, browbeating our poor editor, Thomas Boni, until he'd let me run a James Bond trivia contest in the paper. But hey, a new Bond film only comes along every two or three years. I've got my tickets for "SkyFall" already.

Maybe it’s my parents’ fault. They gave me an Airfix model of James Bond’s Aston Martin DB5, complete with functioning gadgets, for my 10th birthday. (I made a horrible muddle of it, starting with accidentally gluing down the ejector seat. If I had just left it in the box untouched, it’d be worth a fortune today.)

Mom inadvertently got me reading the original Ian Fleming novels when she gave me money to buy a German-English dictionary for my high school language class. There was a display of the film edition of “Diamonds Are Forever” by the front door of the bookshop and I bought that instead.

The first 007 film I ever saw was “Thunderball,” Sean Connery’s 1964 fourth outing as 007, which was broadcast by CBS-TV. (I still have the page from TV Guide in which it’s listed.) I started collecting the soundtrack albums, slipping my high school art teacher, Ms. Miles, cash from my job at the A&P to buy them when she’d go to the mall.

And then came college. Tulane University had one of the nation’s foremost student-run film boards, and was one of a handful of campuses across the country with 35mm projection capabilities and Dolby stereo sound. Perfect for, say, organizing a marathon showing of every Bond film in one weekend, which I did. (We even borrowed a Lotus Turbo Esprit from a local dealer to park in front of McAlister Auditorium.)

Rereading John Pearson’s “James Bond: The Authorized Biography of 007” my junior year, I discovered Bond’s birthday (Nov. 11) fell on a Saturday. A birthday party was in order. Invitations were sent out and about 25 friends crammed into my residence hall suite, appropriately festooned with Bond film posters.

I received a telegram from Albert R. Broccoli, the Bond film producer, expressing his regrets he and his crew couldn’t be in “wonderful New Orleans again” (they had shot “Live and Let Die” there in 1971) but wishing us a great evening. And we made Nell Nolan’s coveted social column in the Times-Picayune, right up there with all the snooty Uptown soirées.

Subsequent James Bond Birthday Parties grew in scope. George Lazenby, whose one appearance as 007 in “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” made him an instant Trivial Pursuit question, appeared at one. So did Lois Maxwell, the original Miss Moneypenny, whom we took to Audubon Zoo during her visit, where she bought us hotdogs and ice cream. Two were held aboard streetcars chugging along St. Charles Avenue.

I’d like to think this Bond thing’s an innocent obsession, rather like collecting shot glasses or Bing & Grondahl Christmas plates. I’ve got tubes full of Bond film posters, editions of the novels in multiple languages (including Icelandic), 007 toys and games, and am hoping Santa brings me the new Blu-ray set of the all the movies.

But my interest in the character goes beyond the Aston Martins, Saville Row suits, Rolex watches and winsome lady friends. I suspect it has to do with Bond’s embodiment of the sort of quiet, no-nonsense hero who knows his duty and does it without much hoopla, sometimes getting his heart and body injured in the process.

Bond reminds me of men from the Great Generation, such as my dad, who marched off to World War II, as did Bond, recognizing it was their duty, not expecting any glory. Actually, someone expressed this better.

“He’s our modern-day version of the great heroes who appeared from time to time throughout history;…People who all went out and put their lives on the line for the cause of good,” President Ronald Reagan said in a 1983 Bond TV special. “James Bond is a man of honor. Maybe it sounds old-fashioned, but I believe he is a symbol of real value to the free world.”

Isn’t that the sort of hero we — and our kids — should be looking up to? Sometimes it seems there aren’t many left. But as long as one can walk up and say, “My name is Bond. James Bond,” there’s hope for the world.

Brian’s Bond Top 10

Favorite Bond book: From Russia, With Love

Favorite Bond film: On Her Majesty’s Secret Service

Favorite Bond actor: George Lazenby

Favorite Bond theme song: You Only Live Twice (Nancy Sinatra)

Favorite Bond girl: Tracy DiVicenzo (Diana Rigg, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service)

Favorite Bond villain: Francisco Scaramanga (Christopher Lee, The Man With the Golden Gun)

Favorite Bond gadget: The Goldfinger Aston Martin DB5

Favorite Bond production design: You Only Live Twice

Favorite Bond dialogue: Bond: “You expect me talk?” Goldfinger: “No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die.”

Most abysmal Bond film: Quantum of Solace (Daniel Craig, 2008)

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: COMMENTARY: James Bond and me

Like the north county weather’s unpredictability in autumn, the sounds in Warriors Hall Nov. 3 changed back and forth from hot and sultry to cool and breezy as the DownBeat Jazz Orchestra unleashed some of the greatest big band and jazz music to swing the Hub City. The Crestview Friends of the Arts brought the 17-piece band to the Warriors Hall stage to celebrate the first anniversary of the hall’s new grand piano.

The audience, which topped 200 jazz lovers, ranged from seniors with canes to a pair of 6-year-old twins who knew good sounds when they heard them, proving that all-American jazz transcends generations.

A boisterously hard-pumping arrangement of Duke Ellington’s “Take the A Train” kicked off the evening, followed by numbers showcasing the orchestra’s multi-faceted vocalist Gina Walker, whose tight vocals demonstrated ear-pleasing control but also let her cut loose when the material — or mood — demanded. Her warm, heartfelt rendition of the Brothers Gershwin’s “Summertime” from “Porgy and Bess” was breathtaking.

Saundra Daggs, a guest vocalist, thrilled the audience with her rendition of Cole Porter’s complicated masterpiece “Night and Day,” followed by the perky “Mambo Italiano” before slowing things down with a soulful “This Masquerade.”

The songs reeled off one after the other, with the DownBeat guys, Gina and Saundra molding Hit Parade standards into fresh, exciting pieces all their own.

“This band plays stuff we like to play,” music director — and Gina’s husband — Michael Walker said. “We try to be more audience-sensitive, but when we got together, we said we’d play the stuff we didn’t get to play in high school.”

During many numbers, couples, often led by the Crestview Fred Astaire studio’s David Colón, Erika Moreno and Aaron Stowell, cut the rug. Unable to restrain their happy feet, three of Brent and Julie Bywater’s four children took to the floor and remained fixtures down front for the rest of the evening.

While 6-year-old twins Rex and Sydney’s dancing might charitably be described as “athletic,” Trevor, 8, whom Mom Julie said was “channeling his inner Gene Kelly,” whose movies are among Trevor’s favorites, displayed his “juke” dancing.

“When you juke, you’re able to do stuff real fast,” Trevor said, explaining the Chicago-born sideslip moves. “You can do a lot with your feet.”

“I enjoy seeing the children dancing, especially to this kind of music,” Gina said. “Our parents motivated us to (enjoy) big band music and it’s just so important, it doesn’t die for today’s kids.”

Some, however, found the children’s exuberance distracting.

“It was cute at first,” Pamela Tousserchamp said. “But after a while, all that running around got to be annoying.”

The evening’s second half kicked off with a spirited version of “In the Mood.” Gina led the band into a great version of “Straighten Up and Fly Right” that contrasted — nicely — with Nat King Cole’s original, and an emotionally satisfying rendition of “At Last,” made famous by Etta James, that sent chills up many a spine.

The band cut loose with a fantastic instrumental medley of several Leonard Bernstein songs from “West Side Story.” Like good little Jets and Sharks, the Bywater kids danced throughout. Daggs returned for a lovely “Why Don’t You Do Right” and “a little ballad,” “The Nearness of You.”

The night’s last Cole Porter tune was the usually sultry “Love for Sale,” which the guys re-imagined with a jazzy, swingin’ beat. But they saved us a good torch song for the finale, with Gina’s slow, sad, glorious rendition of “Traveling Light.”

It was a memorable evening, an event proving Crestview needs and desires accessible timeless music that thrills the ear, nudges the heart and stirs the feet, whether they’re Erika Moreno’s elegant pumps or Rex Bywater’s sneakers with flashing red LEDs in the soles.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Concert Review: Swinging in Crestview: VIDEO

CRESTVIEW — Crestview Community Theater presents its first production, the classic dark comedy, “Arsenic and Old Lace” at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 16 and 17 and at 3 p.m. Nov. 18 at Warrior’s Hall, 201 Stillwell Ave.

Tickets are $10 for adults / $5 for children under 12 and can be purchased at The Journey Java Connection at 269 N. Main St. downtown. Any remaining tickets will be available at the door before each performance.

Call 398-8814 for details or to become a Crestview Community Theater sponsor.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Crestview Community Theater presents ‘Arsenic and Old Lace’

CRESTVIEW — The Okaloosa County Fair is over for another year, but three Crestview High School students have tangible memories in the form of ribbons awarded for their art works at the annual event.

Rebecca Morris, a junior, received a second-place ribbon for “Misty,” a cut paper collage depicting a small dog. Each component of the work was made from individual pieces of colored paper intricately cut to form the image.

Collegiate High School junior Naomi Campagne received an Honorable Mention ribbon for her sculpture, “My Life is in Your Hands.” The work depicts an infant cradled in a pair of caring hands. Naomi, a Crestview resident, spends most of her school day at the Northwest Florida State College-based high school, but begins her day in Crestview High art instructor Laurel Breaux’s studio classroom at Crestview High.

“She’s Collegiate now but she still participates in Crestview High School activities,” Breaux said. “She is exceptionally talented.”

Jordan Sutherland, a Crestview High 10th-grader, also won an Honorable Mention ribbon for her ceramic plate, “Falling Leaves.” Leaf-shaped holes in the plate accentuate the work’s title.

The local students’ winning artistry was exhibited throughout the Oct. 8-13 fair at the Fort Walton Beach fairgrounds.

The Arts and Design Society of Fort Walton Beach administers the visual arts component of the fair, Breaux said.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: CHS art students are winners