Teenage children of the villains, Edward Hicks as Carlos, Riley Streifel as Evie, Billie Zawadiuk as Jay and Katelyn Vos as Mal.--NEWS PHOTO SAMANTHA JOHNSON
reporter@medicinehatnews.com
Medicine Hat Firehall Theatre is presenting Disney Descendants, The Musical with performances opening tonight and closing Nov. 26. The show follows the teenage offspring – Mal, Evie, Carlos and Jay – of a few of Disney’s most notorious villains – Maleficent, the Evil Queen, Cruella de Vil and Jafar – as they begin to come into their own identities. A married and older Beauty and the Beast with their son Ben, the Fairy Godmother and her daughter Jane, Cinderella’s son Chad and Aurora’s daughter Audrey also make appearances.
Comic moments are provided by the two security guards at the museum and the science teacher has an Albert Einstein look happening with the wild hair. Two young members of the audience told the News at intermission the singing and dancing were their favourite parts and certainly the choreography and performance of the ensemble was spectacular.
Venus Rivers who plays Doug, the son of Dopey from Snow White, said, “We worked with Hit the Floor, so lots of their dancers are in it and they’re incredible. They are definitely a big reason we were able to have the choreography we do because some of it I can do it but it’s not the most elegant, or some of it I can’t actually do so I do it as close as I can.”
Rivers wasn’t originally cast in the role of Doug, but someone needed to drop out and she saw the chance to play a bigger part.
“I’ve made the character my own, given that I am femme presenting. I think it adds a lot to the story and I’ve been really enjoying the lore and making up back stories with my cast mates. With Dopey, I figured he had selective mutism, his vocal chords worked but there was some kind of mental block, which I tied to making Doug quite anxious but still very courageous, which is a fun dichotomy to play with. One of our backstage jokes is the reason I forget Bashful is because he went missing in the 60s because he was D.B. Cooper – any true crime fans would pick that one up.”
Doug develops a crush on her first encounter with Evie, daughter of the Evil Queen from Snow White. Evie is constantly pressured by her mother to play down her talents and nab a prince, but eventually falls for Doug.
“Not only does she not find a prince,” said Rivers, “but he (Doug) is not really that much of a guy.”
Doug is afraid of the new kids on the scene but has been best friends with Ben forever and chooses to trust his judgment. “Learning about the kids, they aren’t rotten to the core, they are abused kids who don’t know any better, so showing compassion towards them is important, even though I’m still a little afraid of them,” explained Rivers.
She feels they are ready for opening night and the dress rehearsal went OK, with sound engineer Morgan Burtt, who was walking by, adding, “Not bad, could’ve been worse.”
Rivers explained, “The only things that went wrong were tech, I think we covered as well as we could. We weren’t able to hide there was an issue happening, but we were able to stay in character and keep it entertaining for the audience, that’s the biggest thing.”
After graduating from high school, Rivers decided to take time off from schooling to figure out what she wants to do, but added theatre is a passion.
Tickets are $35 and the first show of Descendants is tonight at 7:30 p.m. For other showtimes or more information visit https://www.firehalltheatre.ca/shows/disneys-the-descendants.
