By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
The Horizon Youth Theatre knows something about moving about. In the youth troupe’s 24 years of existence, it has hop-scotched from venue to venue, big and small.
So it’s appropriate as HYT embarks on a new season of plays on yet another new stage, they do so with a show about a journey.
The Horizon Youth Theatre is staging “Journey to the World’s Edge,” tonight (Oct. 22) and Saturday at 7 p.m. and Sunday Oct. 24 at 2 p.m. in the Veteran’s Building Atrium at City Park in Bowling Green. Tickets are $5 and available at the door.
“Journey to the World’s Edge,” directed by Keith Guion, finds our young heroine Brigid (Claire Nelson) chaffing at the restrictions placed on her by her parents (Alice Walters and Alexander Sands). She is not allowed to attend school and has only one book to read. So Brigid slips off and is dazzled by what she finds in the village, especially the school. One girl Brianna (Sophia Rainey) even reaches out to be her friend.
But then Brianna’s mother (Calista Motisher) and the street cleaner (Adam Proulx) point out that Brigid is “that” girl, the one with the deformed foot. All the villagers turn their backs on her, and she flees home. That rejection is what her parents have been protecting her from.
But a restless soul cannot be settled. With the help of a sage (Violet Grossman)and a bog rod to guide her, Brigid sets out on a journey to the edge of the earth to have her wish fulfilled.
The cast of 13 fifth through eighth graders brings a world of strange and marvelous and sometimes scary creatures alive.
That includes three challenges for Brigid. First. there’s kelpie (Aidan Thomas), a sea horse like creature, whom Brigid frees, though he’s not likely to give her credit. The kelpie becomes her companion as she goes on to outwit a giant (voiced by Nolen Bechstein), and finally she faces down the fearful bog serpent (Violet Grossman, Alexander Sands, Sophia Rainey, Logan Kerin, Nolen Bechstein).
(The cast also includes Liam Cooper, Ginger Windom, and Alice Rainey.)
Having met these challenges and reached the edge of the earth, the plucky Brigid faces a choice – live among these marvelous creatures, make her deformed foot “normal,” or go back home just as she left and realize her foot is just a very small part of who she is.
It’s not hard to guess what she will decide. The venues may change but the messages of youth theater are always affirming.
