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Little Theatre presents youth musical 'Cyrano de BurgerShack'
SIKESTON -- The Sikeston Little Theatre will bring pop music, laughs and romance to the stage beginning tonight with its first youth musical production in three years.
Performances of "Cyrano de BurgerShack" by Jeremy Desmon will be at 8 p.m. today, 7 p.m. Friday, 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday at the Little Theatre.
"It's a good, family-friendly story of teens and their lives today and trying to get over that stereotype of judging a book by its cover," said Jeremiah Dunmyer, executive director of the SLT production.
Something different with this production is the fact there will five performances instead of the usual four performances.
"This was done mostly to give more availability to patrons to see a show," Dunmyer said.
Desmon's play is an updated, modern-day version of Edmond Rostand's classic play "Cyrano de Bergerac," which was written in the 1800s. It's based on the real life of Cyrano de Bergerac lived in the 1600s.
Some may also remember the storyline in the 1987 film adaptation, "Roxanne," which starred Steve Martin and Daryl Hannah.
"Cyrano de BurgerShack" was first produced in 2014 by Stageworks Media, has purposely been made for youth performers, Dunmyer said.
"What's really interesting about this is instead of youth trying to play older characters, the folks that designed this play -- and it's designed for high school and community theaters with youth in mind -- the characters are your normal high school and junior high school kids," Dunmyer said.
"This modernized version is so well done that it's performed in other playhouses and colleges," Dunmyer said.
Desmon's play follows Cyrano who is the king of the local Burger Shack, who can't seem to win the affection of his best friend, Roxanne, who is oblivious to this. When Roxanne confesses her crush on the new boy, Christian, Cyrano decides to help her win over her crush.
"The basic moral of the story is you don't have to be judged by how you look on the outside. You need to get deeper into people's personalities to understand who they are," Dunmyer said.
He continued: "Cyrano has a massive nose, and people who know him, know he's a really good and cool person, and people who don't know him, judge him by his looks."
Leading the cast of 32 are Micah Wallace as Cyrano, Rory Jaynes as Roxanne and Garrett Smith as Christian.
Jaynes has been involved in the Little Theatre for five years, but this production is her first lead role.
"I love theater. I really like playing this role a lot," Jaynes said.
The audience will likely appreciate the contemporary pop music, too, Jaynes said.
"I really like that there's a bunch of modern songs. They're all fun songs," said Jaynes, who performs solos of "Call Me Maybe" and "Less Than Perfect."
Tickets are still available for all performances at Collins Music in Historic Downtown Sikeston or at the door the day of the performance.
Jaynes encouraged others to get their tickets now.
"It is so funny, and you will not stop laughing," Jaynes said. "There's a little bit of everything for everybody. There's humor, drama and music. It's amazing."
For the complete story, see the Thursday edition of the Standard Democrat.