Charlotte weaves her web onto Renaissance Center stage in family classic
Release Date: 3/4/2008. Expired: 3/30/2008
The Renaissance Players present a tale of friendship and salvation down on the farm with a production of the classic children’s story Charlotte’s Web March 21-30 at The Renaissance Center in Dickson.
Adapted for the stage by Joseph Robinette, the play is based on E.B. White’s 1952 story that was named “the best American children’s book of the past 200 years” by the Children’s Literature Association.
Charlotte’s Web will be presented at 7 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays for two weekends. Tickets are $12 for adults, $10 for seniors 55 and over and $7 for children under 13.
There will be a special lunch matinee Saturday, March 22, beginning with a buffet lunch in the rotunda and the performance at 1 p.m. Tickets are $20. After the show, the Easter Bunny and the cast of Charlotte’s Web will host a Children’s Easter Egg Hunt on the front lawn of The Renaissance Center. The hunt is free to all children 12 and under who attend the afternoon performance. A ticket stub from the special matinee is required to participate in the hunt.
“Even though it is most widely recognized as a classic children’s story, Charlotte’s Web contains themes of sacrifice, salvation and miracles that are appropriate for all ages in the Easter season. That is one of the primary reasons I chose this play for that time of the year,” said Amy Scott, assistant artistic director for The Renaissance Center and director of the production. “The show opens on Good Friday and our egg hunt will be the Saturday before Easter.”
All the enchanting characters are here: Wilbur, the irresistible young pig who desperately wants to avoid the butcher; Fern, a girl who understands what animals say to each other; Templeton, the gluttonous rat who can occasionally be talked into a good deed; the Zuckerman family; the Arables; and, most of all, the extraordinary spider, Charlotte, who proves to be "a true friend and a good writer."
Determined to save Wilbur, Charlotte begins her campaign with the "miracle" of her web in which she writes, "Some pig." It's the beginning of a victorious campaign that ultimately ends with the now-safe Wilbur doing what is most important to Charlotte.
The Renaissance Players production of Charlotte’s Web features Michael Richardson of Burns as Wilbur and Lisa Komisar of White Bluff as Charlotte. Rachel Henderson of Lexington, Tenn., plays Fern and Brennan Hicks of McEwen is her brother, Avery. Tom Whiting of Charlotte and Hope Stewart of Burns play their parents, John and Martha Arable. Carey Thompson of Dickson and Jean Gregory of Burns are Homer and Edith Zuckerman, the farmers who adopt Wilbur. Matt Romine of Dickson plays Templeton, the conniving rat who turns out to have a heart of gold.
The barnyard is filled with an assortment of animals who befriend Wilbur, with parts played by Jordan Hartwell, Connie Oliver, Kaila Wooten, Jon Kopischke, Valerie Kopischke, Randy Jett, Trudy Whiting, Ashton Frey, Johanna Seeger, Sydney Bogard, Paige Bogard, Chandler Jett, Bekah Komisar, Maclain Proctor, Haley DeLoach, Abigail Moore, Shane Kopischke, Jake Smith, Kedzie Frey, Eliza Komisar and Janesa Wine. Tina Romine is stage manager.
Robinette is the author of 51 published plays and musicals, including The Fabulous Fable Factory, written with composer Thomas Tierney, and Charlotte's Web, adapted with advice from E.B. White, two of the most widely produced children's plays in the United States. He also has dramatized the stage versions of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, The Paper Chase and A Rose for Emily.
The recipient of numerous playwriting awards, Robinette was presented the 1976 Charlotte Chorpenning Cup, given annually by the Children's Theatre Association of America to "an outstanding writer of children's plays who has achieved national recognition." In 2002, as professor of theatre at Rowan University, he received the Lindback Distinguished Teaching Award for Demonstrated Excellence in the University Classroom.
In 2004, he received the American Association for Theatre and Education's best play award for his adaptation of Sarah, Plain and Tall, and in 2006, he was awarded the Children's Theatre Foundation of America Medallion "for his body of dramatic works for children and young people in the United States and beyond." A graduate of Carson-Newman College in Tennessee with a degree in theatre, he currently resides in New Jersey.
Charlotte’s Web also has been a musical, a 1973 animated movie and a hit live action movie in 2006 featuring Dakota Fanning and the voices of Julia Roberts, Steve Buscemi, Oprah Winfrey, John Cleese, Kathy Bates, Reba McEntire, Robert Redford and Thomas Haden Church.
For more information on the Renaissance Players production of Charlotte’s Web, call (615) 740-5600 or visit www.rcenter.org. To purchase tickets, call (615) 740-5601.
The Renaissance Center is a fine arts education and performing arts center at 855 Highway 46 South in Dickson, just 35 miles west of Nashville on Interstate 40 at exit 172.
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