She’s funny, mischieveous, strong-willed, blunt, imaginative, and a little bit accident-prone. She’s Junie B. Jones. The Carmi White County Drama Department brings Junie B. Jones the Musical to the stage this Friday and Saturday nights along with a matinee performance on Sunday. While the show focuses on characters entering the third grade, director Sherry Passmore promises it’s one adults will enjoy as well. After the successful run of Newsies in the fall, Passmore says it was easy to see a theme developing by choosing Junie B.
“And the particular theme for this year has been youth empowerment. So, we have had two very strong, though different shows, on empowering youth. Newsies was a little bit older and based on a true story. This one, my students grew up reading these books so they were the ones telling me, hey this [scene] is from this book and this [scene] is from this book. They knew it way better than even I did.”
Thirty-four students make up the cast and crew for Junie B. Jones. Senior Brook Hineman plays the title character and is also one of three student directors along with fellow Senior Landon Driscoll and Junior Hannah Collins. Hineman says being a student director has opened her eyes to certain aspects of the production.
“I think its been really nice to be able to see some of the thought processes behind some decisions that I had no idea about how much thought goes into it before.”
Collins and Hineman talk about some of the other students who will fill out the cast.
“So Camille and Chenille are Lucille’s best friends who was Junie’s kindergarten best friend. And this year, she just doesn’t think that Junie’s cool enough and she wants to be friends with girls’ whose names rhyme with hers. And then there’s Herb played by Landon Driscoll and he’s kind of Junie’s love trope, a first grade crush. And then Landen Elliott plays Sheldon, who’s kind of the class nerd.”
The shows are expected to run about an hour and a half. The Carmi League of Arts will have refreshments available and evening shows will start a hair earlier than you may be used to.
“The show is March 15th – 17th…6:30 on Friday and Saturday night and then 2:30 on Sunday. $5 for Students, $10 for adults and then kids 5 and under get in free.”
The League of Arts is celebrating it’s 50th year and folks will have the opportunity to learn what the milestone production for this summer will be in programs. It’s expected to open in late June.
