Alice's Avengers In Underland.......by Joyce oroz

"Alice's Avengers In Underland" is an original rock musical you don't want to miss. Janinne Chadwick writes a new play each year--fun, spoofy plays that make you want to laugh, sing and clap as you tap your feet to the music. Seventy-two children are in this year's production. Every year the acting, singing, dancing, music,and lighting are all first class. How do they do it? Well, come see for yourself!

Find your favorite superhero or super villain this summer as Little People's Repertory Theatre (LPRT)  Presents;  'Alice's Avenger's In Underland'. 

                                 Pictures by Lisa Nicolosi

  Alice and a host of singing and dancing superhero’s, dive into Underland to fight Gotham City's most vile villains in their Underland hideout in Little People’s Repertory Theater’s (LPRT) “Alice’s Avengers In Underland”. 

This original rock musical by Janinne Chadwick opens July 25^th at Park Hall in downtown Ben Lomond. LPRT’s summer production promises to entertain audiences of all ages. Alice’s Avengers In Underland parodies pop music, classic rock and iconic pop-culture icons, from Tom Jones to Taylor Swift. 72 local youths, ages 8-14 will perform under the Direction of Daria Troxell, with Arindam Krishna Dass as musical director and sister choreographers, Whitney and Marinda James-Heskett. This summer’s production will have many impressive special effects, worthy of a cast of super heroes’ and super villains!'

 For almost 40 years, Little People’s Repertory Theatre has provided a unique, low-cost, high quality summer musical theatre program for children 8-14. LPRT is the most affordable children’s theater program in Santa Cruz County. Since 1998, LPRT (a non-profit)  has offered children the unique opportunity to do “non-traditional” theater. We present an original rock musical tailored for a cast of 70 children. We take a traditional fairy tale or folktale and rewrite it with a contemporary twist. Every child sings, dances and has a spoken part.

  Performances begin July 25th.  Evening performances July 25, 26, 27, 31, August 1, 2, and 3, show time 7:30 PM. .  Two Sunday matinees July 28 and Sunday August 4th, show time 2:00 PM.  Fabulous food snacks and drink available before each show. 

Youth tickets are only $8.50.  A limited number of tickets are available at the box office for purchase thirty minutes before Show Time. Don’t wait, purchase your tickets early..

To purchase tickets and obtain additional information visit lprt.org

Janinne Chadwick has been called “The Weird Al of children’s theater.” She has been drawn to parody, from earliest musical memories listening to her parent’s Alan Sherman albums - to getting in trouble in the fourth grade for writing parodies of Beatles songs on her desk. Janinne watched so much TV as a child that using 1960’s sit-coms as a background for her plays, like a kind of spiritual purging. She is also a published poet, singer and songwriter, performing in Los Angeles, Santa Barbara and the San Francisco Bay Area during the 80's and 90's. Eventually her time was taken up raising her three children along with working with her husband, recording engineer and producer, Daren Chadwick.

   Janinne has an M.A. in Human Development and teaches at Cabrillo College and CSUMB. She has managed to find a creative outlet for her combined interests in children, creativity, pop culture and performance through her work every summer with LPRT where she has served as Executive Director and playwright for the past 14 years. Janinne is so creative with her re-writes of rock and pop songs and then inter-mixing them into fairytales. The twists and turns, the parodies and pop culture references that span many generations in one of her shows are truly fantastic. She has opened up to children, ages 8-14, the opportunity for non-traditional musical theatre, the only one in Santa Cruz County. If you have never seen one of these shows it is well worth making the drive to Ben Lomond. Adults will enjoy the show with or without children. Some say it is actually written more for adults.