The Family That Plays Together Stays Together

By Lynn Gifford
Staff Writer

Gooseberry Park Players is the best kept family entertainment secret in the area. Everything about Gooseberry celebrates families.

GPP began 20 plus years ago with Fargo children’s theatre pioneer Ann VanderMaten. Meant from the very beginning to be “theatre for kids by kids,” the company took the name from Gooseberry Park in Moorhead, where the plays were performed in a big green meadow. Folks sat on folding chairs, lawn chairs, blankets or just the grass.

After a number of cold and rainy, hot, muggy, buggy and otherwise unpredictable summers, the players found their way to Concordia College’s Frances Frazier Comstock Theater and director Jim Cermak.

Kids from the age of 11 to 18 are the performers, the techies and stage crew. Parents and siblings are their assistant set builders, costume builders, box office workers and do a dozen other kinds of volunteer jobs.

A handful of theatre professionals and designers teach all of them to work, and one man holds everything together with the magic that is theater. Cermak calls it “a family of families.” A professor of theatre arts at Concordia College, Gooseberry Park Players is his labor of love.

Parents make a commitment of 20 to 30 volunteer hours of “sweat equity” for the season’s production. Kids learn to act, sing, dance, build sets, sew, move scenery and much more. In this year’s production, “The Pinafore Pirates,” they also learn to sword fight.

They learn theater commitment and discipline: to be prompt, dependable, focused and to respect the other actors and technicians, and their craft. Along the way they lose shyness and gain self confidence.

I spent the better part of a day with the Gooseberry families. I saw a rehearsal of “The Pinafore Pirates,” met some wonderful young actors and watched parents working hard and cheering on the kids.

If you like Gilbert and Sullivan, you’ll love this show. Think of it as a combination of The Pirates of Penzance meet the female Pirates of the Caribbean.

Many great songs from seven outstanding musical theatre classics have been rewritten to focus on the conflict between The Pirate Queen and her band of girl-pirates who battle in song and dance for the Paragonian Island and the fairies of Iolanthe.

Along with the islanders, fairies, and the girl-pirates, familiar characters include The Great Mikado, Major General Stanley, Admiral Sir Joseph Porter, Princess Ida, the Duke of Plaza-Toro, and John Wellington Mills, the Sorcerer.

The music isn’t exactly Gilbert and Sullivan, but it’s uncannily close. If you’re at all familiar with the operettas you’ll be delighted with this tricky spoof of those spoofs. The young voices are surprisingly strong and the harmonies are well sung. By the time the show opens July 21, the cast will really be “admiral-able.” I especially enjoyed Bethany Lahlum as Princess Ida and The Duke of Plaza-Toro, Cameron Sorrells.

I was also really happy with the dancing in the show. The choreography by Leah Schabert is spirited, and there are some very fine young dancers including their designated dance captain Grace Duginski.

The set is beautiful and beautifully functional. It’s not easy to build a ship complete with sail, mast, classic rope rigging and cannons on stage. Especially a ship on a rolling blue sea that turns into a wooded fairy glen and then a tropical island.

All of this takes place under the watchful eyes of Managing Artistic Director Jim Cermak and Molly Zupancich, Associate Director. By the time the show opens the young crew should be even more accomplished and the set changes will be as smooth as silk.

Add the set, beautiful bright costumes, wonderful props, sparkling music, sweet young voices and spritely dancers to the wickedly funny libretto and you will have as fine and fluffy a Gilbert and Sullivan as anyone could wish.

“The Pinafore Pirates” looks to be the finest family entertainment in Fargo in a long time. Don’t miss this one!

The regional premiere of “The Pinafore Pirates” by Malcom Sircom runs Tuesday, July 21 through Saturday, July 25 at 7 p.m. with matinee performances Saturday, July 25 and Sunday July 26 at 1 p.m. at Frances Frazier Comstock Theater at Concordia College.

Tickets are available at Concordia College’s Box Office Monday through Saturday 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. All tickets are general admission. Plan to arrive 30 minutes prior to the performance for best seating.