THE SHOW:  

Book by Bradley G. Carter, Music by Kathie McMahon.  

This entertaining new musical adaptation of Grimm’s Little Red Riding Hood takes us to 1930s France where Little Red (aka Marie) wears a red beret, the flowers just off the path to Grandmother’s house can do the can-can, and a quartet of mimes may just save the day. Little Red/Marie is a favorite with the kids in the village as a lovable storyteller, but to Marie the stories are just flights of fancy. She’s far more intrigued by real things like Madame Curie and the discovery of Pluto and her talking parrot friend Jacques, dismissing fairy tales about dangerous wolves in the woods. But The Wolf is very real. And when Marie purchases some items to take to her ill grandmother, items that The Wolf had hoped to purchase himself (including lavender candles that help him to relax), he grows determined to get his revenge and those lavender candles.  

THE PRODUCTION:  

East Valley Children’s Theatre gives this new musical its world premiere. Director Karen Rolston’s production looks great with welcoming village shops (sets by Thomas Gilseth) and nice costumes by Kathy Most. And the show is perfectly paced and staged, setting the characters while capturing the humor and the tension and the fantasy.  

A terrific cast brings the modernized fantasy to the stage. As Little Red, Ashlyn Riggs is intelligent, charming with the young fans of her storytelling, and fearful as a monster from the fairy tales attacks. She also delivers some impressive period vocals with the jazzy Stay on the Path. Brian Robertson sinks his teeth into his role as The Wolf, enjoying being the bad guy as he gets frustrated with his shopping spree, intimidates some flowers, tries to separate Marie and a kindly woodsman, and breaks the fourth wall as his search for tasty little human morsels includes the front rows of the audience (which at this showing was concerning enough to make one young toddler in the front row cry). Tyler Briggs is a thoroughly likeable woodsman Jean Claude with the soul of an artist, and Elizabeth Schaible is a fun, slapstick sidekick as Marie’s talking parrot friend Jacques who is none too pleased when the mimes make him a Jacques in an invisible box from which he cannot escape.  

Elsewhere, Emma Lovata is a hoot as a lively Grandma who makes The Wolf miserable, Landon Bowman shines as a melodramatic, la petite pirate, and Nikki Kamouzis is sweetly maternal as Marie’s mother. While the ensemble is deeply talented with friendly villagers, unfriendly woodsmen, excited village children, flowers that are at first lazily confident and then terrified, and mischievous mimes (Leonel Gallegos, Calvin Mugge, Bailey Mae Goins, and Jessica Hughes) who expertly and quietly go about their business of saving the village children from boredom and monsters.

Rob Hopper
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Executive Director
National Youth Arts

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