The theater program brings new ideas every year, but this year, it was magical. For the first time ever, the elementary schools were visited by princesses. The Nixa High School advanced theater students dressed up as fantasy characters to visit the elementary students.

   “The group that I took to the elementary schools was the Crowder Piece group because we were going to perform at Crowder,” theater student teacher Olivia Ingamells said. “Then Crowder got canceled because of the snow week. They still got to perform at the night of one-acts, but they didn’t get to compete.” 

   Students dressed up as a variety of characters, ranging from “The Queen of Hearts” to “Little Red Riding Hood.”

   “We had a lot of well-known fairy tale characters,” Ingamells said. “We did Hansel and Gretel, Alice [in Wonderland], the Mad Hatter and the Queen of Hearts. We had Peter Pan, Wendy and Tink. We also had Captain Hook at one point. We did a couple of Disney princesses the second time too, so we did Snow White, and then we had Rapunzel and we did Flynn Rider too.”

   The first school that was visited was Mathews Elementary School, followed by Century Elementary. Both of these schools had different characters and different skits performed for them. 

   “And it was decided that Pinocchio was going to be like a dimensional time traveler, and so Pinocchio was almost in like every skit… so Joseph [Pinocchio] would run in and be like, ‘Oh, I’m Pinocchio, I’m a real boy,’” junior Arianna “Kerez” Covey said. “So with the ‘Peter Pan’ skit at the very beginning, he [Peter Pan] was like, ‘I need one last lost boy.’ ‘Pinocchio’ raised his hand and said, ‘Me, me, me, pick me.’ And that would later fall into place whenever Captain Hook and Peter Pan were fighting. Then Pinocchio came in with a sword and chased Captain Hook off the stage.” 

   Theater students were in character from the second they stepped into the school to the second they left. 

   “Where I played Belle, this little girl was sitting, and we were mingling about, and she called me over,” senior Leslie Karras said. “She was like, ‘Belle, you’re my favorite princess, I love you so much.’ And she was really adorable. I gave her a big hug, and she was super happy to see me, and the entire time, she kept her eyes on me. And then when we went to leave, she was like ‘Goodbye, I’m gonna miss you.’ And then she hugged me again, and it was so adorable, kids are the sweetest.”

   While the elementary students had a busy morning with the fairy tale characters, the high school students were getting ready as early as 7 a.m.

   “We started introducing ourselves and who we were,” Karras said. “Then we mingled for, like, 10 to 15 minutes, I think. Then Eris Eyeburg played Goldilocks, because it was like a fairy tale breakfast thing, she had them make toasts and have them put bananas and raisins on it to make it look like a bear, which was really cute. And then we had our skits, every character had a skit with other characters from their fairy tale, or we also mixed them up a little. And then at the end, we taught them a 20-second dance that was that one song from the movie Up. I think it’s Mary’s Life from Up. It’s just like Little Princess’s curtsy and bows, and it was adorable, and the kids loved it. And then, at the end, we took group pictures with their class.”

   This was a very unique experience for many students, since a good number of kids taking Advanced Acting are seniors, and it was one of their last times performing. 

   “What made it unique was trying to be this different character you get to be,” Karras said. “We got to choose who we wanted to be. Just like for me, it was a dream of playing Little Red Riding Hood. One of my favorite musicals is Into the Woods, and it’s [Red Riding Hood is] one of my dream roles. So me getting to be someone who I probably wouldn’t play. Or maybe that’s like your only ever opportunity of getting to play that character.”