The Pied Piper Theatre
Coming in January to Thalian Hall!
Co-presented by Thalian Hall Center for the Performing Arts
and the Junior League of Wilmington
A New Musical by Steve Cooper

The Adventures of

 
Sunday, January 27, 2008 at 2:00 and 4:30 PM

It is a pleasant afternoon on the Piers of Penzants, but the local citizens are having trouble enjoying the sunshine and sea breezes, because they have uneasy feelings about a mysterious ship, the Peapod, which seems to have docked sometime during the night. Suddenly, a flag is raised on the ship's mast, indicating the vessel is under the command of Bonnie Reed, Queen of the Pirate Ants. Bonnie and her motley crew, Mr. Snippet the Second Mate, Kookie the Cook, Peg Antenna Pete, and the rest suddenly appear.

Will the citizens of Penzants be plundered and perhaps even pillaged? Will they have to walk the plank? Will the Pirate Ants be satisfied if they are able to find the Long-Lost Mysterious Treasure of Bluemustache the Pirate? Perhaps the boys and girls in the audience will be enlisted to ensure a safe and happy ending!


Public Performances
"Bonnie Reed" will be presented for the public on Sunday January 27, 2008 at 2:00 and 4:30 PM.
Tickets are $10.00 General Admission and may be reserved by calling the Thalian Hall Center Box Office at 910-343-3664 or 800-523-2820.
  Learn more about the Pied Piper Theatre below or .

School Performances
   Each year the Pied Piper Theatre performs for over 9,000 school students in New Hanover County. 1st and 2nd Grade school children travel to Thalian Hall by bus, and are treated to an original musical comedy featuring talent derived from the local acting community and volunteers from the Junior League of Wilmington and Thalian Hall Staff.
   At the beginning of the school year the childrens' teachers receive a synopsis of the play and a selection of songs to be taught by County music instructors. When the children arrive, their familiarity with the music and story helps to create an interactive environment. The production of each play is geared to expressing positive themes with a large dose of theatrical "magic" and laughter, while very definitely setting the production apart from more passive media, such as television and film. Sadly, for many children this may be their only exposure to theatre in their lives.
   In order to accomodate not only the New Hanover County Schools, but private schools and some classes from outlying counties as well, two daily, back-to-back morning performances occur for a six-day span. Volunteers from the Junior League provide energy foods for the actors backstage, and logistical support for the Thalian Hall ushers and House Management, helping to corral multiple buses and van-loads of excited 6-8 years olds.
   The week of performances culminates in the two Saturday shows, often attended by returning school children and their parents who have been hearing about the show non-stop since their child's field trip!

A History of the Pied Piper Theatre
   Since 1949, the Junior League of Wilmington (JLW) has produced annual live theatre for elementary school children. In the beginning a group called Children's Theatre traveled to each school to perform several plays.
   The JLW in conjunction with Wilmington College (later UNC-Wilmington) and the New Hanover County School System formed the Pied Piper Theatre in 1970. For 19 years, Pied Piper Theatre remained at Kenan Memorial Auditorium under the direction of Doug Swink. In 1990 Pied Piper moved to the newly-renovated Thalian Hall Center for the Performing Arts where it resides today. With the retirement of Doug Swink in 1990, Thalian Hall Executive Director Tony Rivenbark took over as director of Pied Piper Theatre.

Doug Swink and Kenan Auditorium

   Doug Swink's involvement with Pied Piper began in 1970, but his impact on theatre in Wilmington, NC goes back much further. A native of Richmond, Virginia, Swink graduated from Davidson College majoring in English and French. Following a stint in New York and then the army in World War II he returned to North Carolina for a teaching job at Kings Mountain. He was then asked to teach drama at New Hanover High School and he moved to Wilmington with his late wife Kay Ogden Swink in 1955.
   Once in Wilmington he became involved with local theatre. While working on a Thalian Association play, he met, Dr. William M. Randall, President of Wilmington College which was then located across the street from New Hanover High School. With $300 and encouragement from Dr. Randal he started a summer theatre in the old Issac Bear Auditorium in 1959. Soon after he became a member of the faculty of Wilmington College where he founded the Department of Drama. He continued his Straw-Hat Summer Theatre until 1985 producing five to seven productions each season. Among the many students he influenced are Randy Delago with Delray Playhouse in Florida, Sam Garner with the Thalian Association, Tony Rivenbark with Thalian Hall, and Cameron Baird, a noted Broadway scenic designer.
   He was instrumental in the final design of the Sarah Graham Kenan Auditorium and managed the facility for two decades. Shortly after it opened in 1971, Swink brought the Pied Piper Theatre out of its early phase of touring the schools and established a home for the company in the new auditorium. He helped to usher in a new age of professionalism, and defined the experience of bringing children into a modern working theatre. Along the way countless professional and volunteer actors and technicians were allowed the opportunity to share their artistry with this special audience. Doug tossed that torch to Tony Rivenbark and Thalian Hall following the Hall's renovation in 1990. Until his death in 2005, Doug remained active with several local theatre groups and was last seen in performance with Rivenbark and Lou Criscoula of Opera House Theatre Company in The Sunshine Boys.
   To this day, the Pied Piper experience begins with a signature slapstick curtain speech that was originally perfected by Doug Swink, which Rivenbark continues, to the delight of our young audience (and parents and teachers who might have seen this when they were young). Doug summarized his feeling about the Pied Piper Theatre in a 1990 interview commemorating his career and retirement from theatre management. " I've always said the kids are the show. The minute you raise the curtain and hear the little ones, it's magic."

Tony Rivenbark and Thalian Hall

   D. Anthony Rivenbark received his B.A. in history with a minor in drama from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington in 1970 and did graduate work at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill specializing in 19th-century American theatre. He made his theatrical debut in 1966 and since has appeared in over 100 productions.
   A native of Warsaw, NC, Rivenbark and his family came to Wilmington regularly to shop. His family, he says, have been shopping in Wilmington for 250 years, yet he had never heard about Thalian Hall. In 1966, as an incoming freshman at Wilmington College, he auditioned for a show at Thalian Hall. "The walls were grey, the decorations pink, the seats were green on a field of worn maroon carpet. There were steam radiators that hissed and whistled loudly and greatly disturbed every performance on cold nights. There was no air conditioning, so the Hall sat unused in the summer. Yet I was awed by Thalian Hall's potential beauty." Rivenbark saw beyond the Hall's shabby condition and visualized what it could be.
   In the following years, Tony graduated from UNCW and moved to New York, returning to Wilmington often to appear in productions of the UNCW/Straw Hat Theatre. He even worked as a the Thalian Hall tour guide for the Historic Wilmington Tour and following that he directed the outdoor drama, "The Liberty Cart" for two seasons.
   Following a fire in 1973, the Thalian Hall Center for the Performing Arts, Inc. undertook the restoration of the interior and the theatre re-opened in 1975. Tony was hired in 1979 to manage Thalian Hall and almost almost immediately began laying plans for a more ambitious renovation. Tony displayed his understanding of both the arts and political forces in bringing together a myriad of interest groups, government agencies and performing arts entities in a concensus of what was needed for the future of Thalian Hall. Fortunately the community and its leaders rallied around the project. A combination of funding through a City Bonds Issue, foundation grants and donations from corporate and private sources produced $5.5 million. On March 2, 1990, Thalian Hall celebrated it's Grand Re-Opening.
   It was less than a year later that the Pied Piper Theatre moved to its new home in Thalian Hall. During his matriculation at UNC-W, Tony studied under friend and mentor Doug Swink. Tony's involvement with Pied Piper predates its move to Thalian Hall, and it was only natural that he should assume the direction of the group after Mr. Swink's retirement. His favorite role with the Pied Piper Theatre to date is as "Bossy" the Cow, in Steve Cooper's "Beanstalk." For this production all he had to do was "moo" and tap dance.

Playwright Steve Cooper

   The Pied Piper Theatre has been fortunate to have developed a long-term working relationship with playwright Steve Cooper, whose off-beat takes on classic stories and original creations have consistently engaged children and adults alike, and whose credits with Pied Piper include Aladdin, Bug Story, Wonderland, Too!, The Tortoise and the Hare, Drury Lane, Beanstalk, a Moo-sical for Children, and its sequel: Bossy On Broadway.
   Cooper studied theatre at East Carolina University, received his Bachelor’s Degree from UNC-W and his Master’s from Georgetown. In Wilmington, he made his debut as a playwright with a production in Thalian Hall of his musical adaptation of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream titled Sawdust, which utilized rural mountain settings for both the story and its music. From 1980-1982, he directed the Wilmington Children's Theatre for the Parks and Recreation Department, and began to develop his craft at writing children's shows that could be engaging, thought-provoking and irreverant at the same time.
    Cooper is, perhaps, best known locally for the musicals The Lambda, which has been produced on three separate occasions with three different casts by Opera House Theatre Company, and the experimental Onion Park series, produced by the ad hoc Paradox Experimental Theatre.
   Cooper worked for the Thalian Hall Center for the Performing Arts, Inc. for ten years, where he was invaluable both before, during and following the 1990 renovation. He subsequently moved to Washington, DC (where he once performed with the Washington Shakespeare Company, before retiring from the stage) and works at the Georgetown University Law Center.He currently resides in Fort Lauderdale Florida, where he is an Executive Assistant with the Broward Community College Foundation
   We are proud to retain our artistic and personal friendship with this gifted creator.