Murray’s Playhouse in the Park is mounting a production of “Honk Junior” – a musical adaptation of the story of the Ugly Duckling – through its work with the Penguin Project, a national nonprofit that provides opportunities for young people with physical and intellectual disabilities to participate in musical theatre.
Participants can be artists or mentors. The artists perform the roles, memorize the lines, and learn dances with the help of the volunteer mentors.
Penguin Project director Stephen Keene said these junior productions give artists a chance to be on the stage for a shortened but full theatre performance and that the production this year has a valuable message.
“[It’s] the story of the Ugly Duckling set to music. I like it because it deals with a lot of the same things that our penguins would ordinarily deal with, like feeling different than others, sometimes feeling left out,” he said. “But throughout the show, you get to see the main character ugly progress and eventually become a swan.”
Keene said that the mentors are often on the stage with the artists, able to step in and provide assistance when needed.
“Depending on how well prepared the artist becomes, sometimes we have artists that will not have a mentor with them on stage. It just depends on their comfortability. Most of the time, the artist and mentor work together, though, to make sure that if they forget a line, for example, the mentor is the one that feeds it to them. They got a little backup.”
The production is set to open Oct. 16, but Keene said there is a process to get everything prepared, with organizing artists and mentors and scheduling rehearsal time.
“It takes, of course, the artist and mentors a little bit longer to memorize and to learn all of the dance numbers. We have a shorter rehearsal time too, so they usually have like a four month rehearsal process, but their rehearsals are only an hour and 15 minutes,” he said. “So they can get used to focusing on one thing. They love doing the choreography. And then some days we teach music, and they learn the songs, they learn to sing. Then the other days we will work on actually blocking and showing them where they need to go on stage and going over lines.”
This year Penguin Project is accepting artists and mentors from an expanded range – ages 8 to 25. Keene said widening the age range is necessary this year to get more people involved.
“Normally, we would be taking ages 10 to 23, but for this year only, we have been given permission to take ages eight to 25 because we are really short on artists,” said Keene. “So, we need more artists, which also means we would need more mentors.”
Keene said there are a lot of opportunities for a variety of roles in the production this year.
“They have a chance to be in the production. They will learn all of the dance numbers. They will be cast in a role. There's some main characters. There are some characters that have fewer lines, so you know it's kind of whatever the artists and mentors are interested in. We kind of pair them up with each other, and we cast the full show just like you would a regular production that you'd be in during the season.”
Remaining auditions for Penguin Project are Tuesday, Aug. 25 and Thursday, Aug. 27 at the Playhouse annex in Murray at 4:45 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. For more information about the Penguin Project and auditions, email Penguin Project at pip.penguin@gmail.com.
