- November 25, 2024
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Double, double, toil and trouble has arrived at the Daytona Playhouse, as 36 local children take over the stage for the next two weekends for a comedy musical rendition of Sleeping Beauty.
Written and directed by Ormond Beach resident Kathy Thompson, this take on the classic fairy tale will engage audiences with humor, song and dance. The sassy Princess Beauty, played by Julia Ambrose, is faced with the dilemma of saving her kingdom by marrying the richest prince by the will of her ever-bickering parents, King Bumble and Queen Bea, played by Isaac Jordan and Jaylen Walton.
Playing a big role in the show are the witches. Alex Foege stars as Scariebosse, sister to Queen Fairy Flora, played by Chrissy Alexander. Ormond Beach resident Jessa Ward, 12, who plays one of the witches, said the show isn't your traditional fairy tale. She's excited for people to see what the cast has put together.
"It's definitely a very big twist on Sleeping Beauty," Ward said.
Sleeping Beauty also features four dancers from the European School of Performing Arts in Ormond Beach, all of which play fairies. One of them is 13-year-old Isabella Digon, and she said the cast and crew were very welcoming to the dancers in the show.
"I just felt like I had a new family from being here," Digon said.
This is Thompson's 11th children's show at the Daytona Playhouse after starting the program in 2009. Her husband challenged her to write a play after she was struggling to find a good children's adaptation of Alice in Wonderland, and since then, it's been published and performed in different places in the United Kingdom. The play takes on a British pantomime approach, one that Thompson said will be fun for the whole family.
"When I retired, I always said I would come back to theater, which is my passion," Thompson said. "And I wanted to be sure to give kids in our community a chance of getting to perform here. So here I am."