By Jane Evans

The fifth-grade class at St. Nicholas School produced and performed “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory recently. In addition to the stage roles typical of a studentproduction, students worked on scenery, sets, costuming, and even as sound technicians under Director Stacy French and Assistant Director Maria Murphy Lonergan.

“The children worked hard to get ready for this big event,” said Lonergan. “They painted all the scenery themselves.”

“The drawings were already done. What we had to do was paint.” said Hilary Smith. “We worked three Fridays for two and a half hours until the job was done.”

Student Audrey Kuan was quick to add, “We had a lot of fun just being with each other. It was a good chance to talk and laugh.”

One of the actors doubled as a sound technician. “I control the loudness of the body microphone that Willy Wonka wears,” said Matthew Geibler. There are five microphones: one on Willy Wonka, one cordless and three microphones on stage. “There are times when I have to use my judgment when to amplify or diminish the sound on all five mikes,” Geibler said.

A double cast format enabled all 32 students to participate.

“At first it was really hard, because we had to set up everything including the scenery, props … You had to be quick, memorize lots of lines,” student Alberto Martin said.

“I’m Mrs. Gloop,” remarked Allison Silver, “as well as an Oompa Loompa. One of the hardest things about having two parts is memorizing all those lines!”

When asked if she enjoyed it overall, Silver said, “Oh, yes. What made this really neat was the fact that I shared one of the parts with my best friend.”

Having a double cast proved very useful when Vittorio Sambuceto (Mr. Teavee) came down with the chicken pox.

“If we didn’t have another Mr. Teavee, we would have been in real trouble,” French said. “I don’t know what we would have done.”

“I learned what it’s like to be on stage. You have to stand a certain way, project your voice for all to hear, move quickly and quietly,” Keith Busmire said.

Martin added, “The one thing I learned from all this are mistakes will always happen. You have to be prepared to roll with it.”

“Kids will rise to the occasion if you set expectations, and rise they did,” French said.”They’re going to walk away with life experiences.”