If you’re looking for a spoonful of sugar to sweeten your holiday season, check out the Hawaii Children’s Theater’s performance of Mary Poppins that opens Nov. 13. “Last year we had a 12-foot high dragon for Shrek and this year we
If you’re looking for a spoonful of sugar to sweeten your holiday season, check out the Hawaii Children’s Theater’s performance of Mary Poppins that opens Nov. 13.
“Last year we had a 12-foot high dragon for Shrek and this year we have a set that fully comes apart and goes back together for one scene,” said Debra Blachowiak, who is on the children’s theater board of directors and is producing this year’s show. “There’s lots of magic in it.”
The cast will be putting on nine public performances and four school-specific performances until Nov. 29.
Blachowiak said people can expect to see the same general story as the popular Mary Poppins movie, but the play isn’t exactly the same as the film.
“This show is going to be really fun because there’s magic and theatrical flying,” Blachowiak said. “The costumes are stunning — we even have the iconic parrot umbrella.”
Mitchell Ouye, from Lihue, is the man behind the costuming and many of the specialty props. He said the audiance can expect magic at every turn this year.
“The whole production has been a huge challenge,” Ouye said. “There’s over 40 people in the cast and most of them have more than one costume.”
There’s a doll in the musical, for example, that comes to life, so Ouye needed a regular-sized doll as a prop, and a costumed actor to play the doll later in the show. He turned to his specialty costume designer, Esther Manning, for help.
“I made a life-sized doll suit,” Manning said. “I just made the regular sized doll and used it as a model, then I created the costume.”
Manning also helped with the various magical props and set pieces, which required some creative engineering.
“You have to be creative and think outside of the box to come up with these kinds of sets and costumes and props,” Ouye said. “Watching a lot of MAcGyver helps.”
The children’s theater has been on Kauai since 1996 and has put on countless shows aimed at children throughout the years.
“We always do a big Broadway-style musical like Oliver, Beauty and the Beast, Annie, or Fiddler on the Roof,” Blachowiak said. “We’ve done The Sound of Music three times, shows like that.”
The point is to choose musicals that have a large cast of children. The cast of Mary Poppins, for example, is 45 strong and there are several children’s roles.
“It’s always people from Kauai, too,” Blachowiak said. “We don’t bring people in to put on this show, everything is from Kauai. We make most of our props and costumes ourselves.”
Show times are Fridays and Saturdays at 7 p.m., and Sundays at 4 p.m. at the Kauai Memorial Convention Hall in Lihue.
Tickets are $10 at ticket outlets and online, and $12 at the door.
