Happy Wednesday Smarties! Take a break from all the spring sport activities and enjoy…
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If there are any doubts about the talent level in the Children’s Theater of Charlotte (CTC), just listen to the first song in “The Secret Garden,” CTC’s latest production. You will be mesmerized and thrilled at Charlotte’s amazing pool of talent. CTC has outdone itself with this one.
If you haven’t read “The Secret Garden” since you were little, let me refresh your memory: little Mary is living in India when her parents die. She is shipped to England to live with her grieving, hunchback uncle whom she has never met. There, she meets a loving chambermaid, Martha, a sarcastically sweet gardener, Ben, and her sickly cousin, Colin. She discovers a secret garden that her Aunt Lily created before her death that has since been neglected. She and her new friends work to restore the garden to its original beauty, and in the process, see the beauty in each other and themselves.
I took my 7-year-old son and his friend to Friday’s performance. Neither had read the book or even heard the story. I knew it would be a little confusing and high-level to them, so I tried to whisper updates to them during the course of the show to explain characters – this seemed to help (except when I told my son’s friend that the man singing was her uncle, and he turned to me and said, “He’s YOUR uncle?” Oh geez).
CTC’s production of “The Secret Garden,” directed by Michelle Long, is a musical – each song is more beautiful than the last with amazing duets and group performances. The ghosts of Lily and Mary’s parents and other “dreamers” appear frequently in song and supplement the storyline. The dreamer idea was confusing at first to the boys, but these spirits ended up being their favorite part.
