When you wish upon a star

RONAN  — There were plenty of laughs, maybe even a few tears, and certainly quite a few people restraining themselves from singing along when “The Power of Dreaming,” a musical created and performed by the Ronan seventh and eighth grade drama class, went off to a standing ovation last weekend at the Ronan Performing Arts Center.

With more than 100 characters and almost 20 sets, this production was a massive undertaking, to say the least.

“Costuming, set creation, changing sets, pulling flies — students are doing all of that,” Tingey said.

With the help of a few dedicated faculty and parents, and funded largely by proceeds from ticket sales, students put together elaborate sets and a wardrobe rivaling any Halloween store’s selection.

“[The hardest thing] was having so many different parts, and the set and costume changes,” Ryan Dresen, who played Walt Disney as well as three other characters, said.

To the audience, the transitioning was smooth as the surface of that famous Magic Mirror, but according to actress Chloe Greenfield, who played Minnie Mouse (and others), it was a whole different story backstage.

“It was hectic!” she said. “Everyone was running and pushing each other, there were costumes everywhere.”

While this year’s drama class of seventh and eighth graders has been working on the show for about two and a half months, it’s been a work-in-progress since last spring when they had to cancel the production.

“We watched movies, got lines, got ideas,” Greenfield said of the original script, which was rich with history and ripe with humor.

“I wrote it, but I give the tribute to Walt Disney because it’s his life, it’s his music and his characters that give it life,” Tingey said.

From Mickey Mouse to Winnie the Pooh, Disney created many of the most loved characters of all time and his legacy has certainly carried on. An American icon, few people alive today have not been influenced at some level by Disney’s stories, music or theme parks. His words have helped shape generations of dreamers. Messages like follow your heart, never stop dreaming and always be true to yourself are as true today as they were 70 years ago.

“We thought the audience would be a lot of kids,” Carston Rhine, dressed as Ariel from The Little Mermaid, said after the show. “It’s funny when they shake your hands because even if they already know who you are, they think you’re their hero.”

It’s difficult to say whether it was the dialogue or the music that was most impressive. Students performed more than 10 solos throughout, as well as group numbers, like “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” and “Be Our Guest.”

“That’s why I developed that piece, so many kids get main parts for a short amount of time, they get those solos and they get that experience,” Tingey said. “This piece moves kids along really fast, and I’ve had so many people comment on the same thing, they can’t believe how far the kids have come along in just one year.”

With hours of film at their fingertips, students could study their characters and practice their lines simply by throwing in a movie on a Saturday night.

“Kids are such great mimickers, if you can get them to do that at an early age, then they have that for life,” Tingey said.

And who wouldn’t be excited about studying lines from a favorite movie?

“The kids really didn’t identify with the first half of the play at all. I had to tell them that this was what it was like when we were kids, we’d run home from school to watch Mickey Mouse,” Tingey said. “But they love the second half because those were the characters that they’d grown up with.”

On the other hand, Tingey said a woman told her after the show that she didn’t relate much to the second half because those weren’t the movies she’d raised her kids on, but she just adored the first half and it brought her back to a fun and inspired time in her life.

In only the third year of Ronan’s drama program, this year, it seems things have really taken off.

“This group has been a great group to work with,” Tingey said. “We’re expecting some wonderful things ahead for this group.”

Coming up in January, another middle school class will be performing a tribute to America, both educational and entertaining. The storyline begins with a classroom of kids who are putting on a play about America, and everything is going wrong. However, amid the chaos, the history emerges.

“It ends with a tribute to America’s troops, a song I found online, but is free to use,” Tingey said. “It’s so moving; it’s really powerful.”

Also on the radar for next spring, Tingey said the high school is working on a modern-day rendition of Beauty and the Beast. It’s a story about a girl from America who has an heirloom key that has been handed down for generations. She travels to France where she finds a trunk that only her key fits. Inside the trunk is the story of Belle, her great grandmother. It’s more closely tied to the original French version of Beauty and the Beast, using old songs, now public domain, and putting new lyrics to them. The show is tentatively scheduled for early March.

“It’s just really cool, the kids are excited about it and again doing the costuming and the sets,” Tingey said.

With one success already behind them, this seventh and eighth grade class is looking at a production of either Little Women or Anne of Green Gables, or maybe both, Tingey said.

“We have a community production coming up, too,” she added. “There are lots of ideas being thrown around, but nothing has been decided on yet.”

Beyond that, a children’s play with kids kindergarten through sixth grade will head to stage in April.

“It’s an after school thing involving kids from all over, not just Ronan,” Tingey said.

And looking into the future, she’s talking about a kids’ camps for the summer and another big community production.

“We’ve got some kids here that have been graduated now for a few years and have just been great, they come back here to work in the summer,” she said. “This Performing Arts Center is incredibly beautiful, so we have a lot of ideas for the future.”