It was an absolute treat to spend the past few months directing How to Train Your Dragon Jr. at Town Hall Theatre. Production photos are now available on my flickr stream – I’m excited to show off how good everything looked!

I was excited about working on this production from the start because it is epic in scope. Puppets! Battle scenes! Special effects! And some epic storytelling to go with it all. I was excited about tackling such an ambitious project, and equally excited about the collaborators who helped make it happen. This design team – Chesapeake Dalrymple (set), Deb Sortman (costumes), Rachel Robinson (lighting) and the crews who assist them – all stepped up to find unique solutions to bring this larger-than-life story to life. I’m not sure I’ve ever laughed so hard in production meetings before, but I did for this show because everyone was so excited about diving into the possibilities.

And of course, I got to work with an ensemble of 35 supremely talented student actors. It was a real treat to see how they dove into this material. They took on big characters in a way that was both magical and grounded. They worked with puppets and with weapons with thoughtful, detailed approach. They created characters with goals and feelings as big as their own. I’m so proud of the growth each one of them showed throughout the process.

As always, they taught me something too. I went into the rehearsal process with my own idea of what “tough” and “scary” looked like, ready with my own version of how dragons and Vikings could be portrayed. Luckily, the kids quickly showed me that those characteristics have so many variations, and should look different in the varied characters we meet in this story. I’m grateful they showed me there are so many ways to do “what a Viking can do.”

I’m proud of every inch of this production, and so glad the folks at Town Hall let me come play again. It was clawesome!