Law of the 'Jungle' Monkey see,monkey do

Missoula Children's Theatre performs at Wallenstien Theater

MOSES LAKE — Five days of hard work paid off for the people on and off stage of the latest production of "The Jungle Book."

The Columbia Basin Allied Arts hosted the Missoula Children's Theatre musical production of Rudyard Kipling's story twice on Saturday in Big Bend Community College's Wallenstien Theater.

Sixty performers were selected from 186 people who auditioned a week ago. Following their selection, they rehearsed all week to put on a production complete with tiny elephant stampedes, swooning wolf-ladies, sinister serpents and more than a barrel full of monkeys.

In between performances and reminding performers to leave their costumes in the theater and keep their makeup on, Missoula Children's Theatre tour actor/directors Jennifer Wills and Beth Bronner said it was a good week.

"These kids — they were just really fun," Bronner said.

"I would say they were very focused, they were very dedicated," Wills said. "They definitely put in a lot of time outside of rehearsal memorizing their lines and reviewing. You could definitely tell when they came into rehearsals."

There was even time during the week for a "fun-through," so all the performers could simply be silly.

"It was hysterical," Bronner said.

"They are something else," Wills echoed.

This was the first time for both to be in Moses Lake for such a production.

"Everyone was so nice and the kids are so well-behaved," Bronner said. "They really have respect for authority and that's something the entire community should be very proud of. We never once felt like we had any disciplinary issues. They all followed directions to a T. It was just a really good week altogether."

Wills agreed.

"I don't think there's a lot for kids in the arts in Moses Lake," she said. "So it's great to see the involvement, to see how it impacts the kids. The audience was huge. That's great. Hopefully this will continue to inspire the community to keep bringing Missoula back."

Some of the actors involved in the performance certainly sounded inspired.

"It was a bunch of fun, it was just a whole mess of fun," said Kevin McMains, wolf pack leader Akela.

McMains likes acting, and auditioned with his friends earlier in the week.

"We all tried out and we all got parts," he said. "I would highly recommend it to other people. It was just a great production, the directors were a lot of fun and it was just all around a blast."

Aguinaldo Osborne likes acting and football, which is why he tried out and landed the part of Nag the cobra.

"Anything that resolves acting or football, I will go," he said.

Laine Utter, who played Mowgli the man-cub, wanted to sing in front of an audience. Utter liked getting to know a lot of new people and putting on a good show.

"It was fun," she said. "It was a lot of hard work, but it all comes through into a good show."