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When it comes to children's theatre, Taubenslag
Productions, which will stage 'Snow White' in Edison, offers just
the right mix: classic tales told by a multicultural cast with
some help from the audience.
Reaching out with a claw-like hand, an evil queen offers Snow
White a shiny red apple as a crowd of children shouts warnings
to the unknowing princess. Despite the audience's advice, Snow
White takes the fatal bite and falls into a deathlike sleep.
Audience participation is the latest trend in children's theater,
but it has always been tradition for Taubenslag Productions. Parents
and kids will be able to carry on that tradition during the company's
upcoming performance of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs at the
Middlesex County College in Edison.
"Our philosophy is that children's theater should be like
a three ring circus and a Broadway style musical extravaganza
for children and parents," says director and actor Michael
Taubenslag.
Although it's based on the classic Grimm fairytale, the hour-long
Snow White features original lyrics and dialogue written by Mr.
Taubenslag (pronounced TOW-Ben-Slag) and the company's founder,
his father, Elliott Taubenslag.
In Snow White, an evil queen is jealous of the beautiful Snow
White, a princess who has been deemed fairest in the land by the
queen's magic mirror. The queen sends Snow White into the woods
with a woodsman who is supposed to kill her. Because of his fondness
for Snow White, he kills a pig instead. Snow White ends up in
a cottage inhabited by seven dwarfs, who befriend her. The evil
queen, disguised as a witch, visits Snow White and offers her
a poison apple, which she eats. She then falls into a deathlike
sleep. The princess is awakened by the kiss of a handsome prince,
and together they live happily ever after.
In the Taubenslag version, this basic story is flashed out with
humorous interaction between the characters and the audience.
Mr. Taubenslag plays Grumpy, a crabby dwarf who is also the narrator
of the show.
"The narrator's job is to get the kids involved in the story,
and because I'm Grumpy I try to get the kids to argue with me,"
Mr. Taubenslag says. "For example, at the end of the show
when Snow White is dead I say, 'Nothing can save the princess.'
And the kids yell out, 'That's not true!'"
Even the stock characters get to join in the fun. Prince Charming,
for instance, is extremely eager to save Snow White with a kiss
until his sidekick, Lucretia - a friend of Snow White's from the
palace - suggests that she might have the flu."
The prince leaves the stage because he doesn't want to get sick,
and the kids scream and scream to get him to come back on and
kiss her," Mr. Taubenslag says, laughing.
Linda Ladolcetta, whose children Michael, 11, and Lauren, 7,
are in Snow White, says the show is a wonderful experience for
everyone."
I love them being a part of it, and I also like to see the interaction
of the children in the audience," she says. "It's an
excellent way for children to participate in the arts."
Mr. Taubenslag was a child himself when he first appeared on
stage in 1965. Four years old at the time, he played the part
of a Fisherman's son in Cinderella. Interestingly enough, the
part wasn't scripted."
I was crying because I wanted to go on stage, and the man who
was playing the fisherman picked me up and carried me on as a
joke," he recalls.
The children's theater group was founded in 1964 by Elliott Taubenslag,
Michael's father. Then a Drama and English teacher at East Brunswick
High School, Mr. Taubenslag also ran a children's summer camp
for East Brunswick township, which he still operates. He created
and produced his first professional show, Cinderella, in a small
theater on 42nd Street in New York City.
Because of the famous location, actors and other famous folks
took their families to see shows put on by Elliott Taubenslag
Productions. When he was starring in Fiddler on the Roof on Broadway,
for instance, Zero Mostel would bring his son Josh. And actor
Peter Lawford, brother-in-law to Jacqueline Kennedy Onasis, really
gave the business a boost when he convinced his famous relative
to bring her children John and Caroline to the theater.
"My dad always said that Mrs. Kennedy coming to the theater
was our big break," Michael Taubenslag says.
In 1966, as the neighborhoods around Times Square began to go
downhill, the group moved to the Jan Hus Theatre on East 74th
Street. Elliott Taubenslag, who is now retired and spends most
of his time in Florida, ran the New York company for 11 years,
but decided to give it up in 1975. At that time, however, he began
to do shows at the Middlesex County College, while still teaching,
running the summer camp and operating a small chain of movie theaters
in New York City.
Michael Taubenslag, who was stage-struck from the moment he first
performed, has his own theatrical ambitions. At the age of 6,
he got his first lead as the conscience raising "Cornelius"
Cricket in Pinocchio; "Jiminy" he explains, has been
copyrighted by the Walt Disney Company. He later went on to do
TV and print commercials.
In fact, love of the theater seeps into all aspects of his life,
even romance. He proposed to his fiance, Michele Bloom, a member
of the troupe in costume.
"We were out at this wonderful restaurant and after we finished
dinner, he excused himself," Ms. Bloom recalls. "He
came back dressed up as Prince Charming, got down on one knee
and asked me to marry him."
But while he enjoys acting, Mr. Taubenslag really wanted to direct.
"It was a childhood dream, I think, because I saw Daddy doing
it," he explains. "I always wanted to be a director."
In 1980, he got his chance. Then a freshman at Rutgers University's
Mason Gross School of the Arts, he asked his dad to put up the
funds for him to start the city-based children's theater again."
I knew that if you want to work and stay in the theater, you
don't wait around for jobs; you create them," Mr. Taubenslag
says.
The new group continued to perform at the Jan Hus Theater and
at Middlesex County College, but also traveled father afield,
performing at theaters throughout New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut
and New York. By 1992, touring was so time consuming, in fact,
that they gave up their New York City base.
The company has a repertoire of over forty original productions,
most of them based on well-known fairy tales. The 1994-1995 season,
which started last October and runs through February at Middlesex
County College, will finish with Beauty and the Beast and Cinderella.
Mr. Taubenslag says that his father's basic theatrical philosophy
is what makes the shows a hit with families, "We never talk
down to kids, and we always place emphasis on fun," he adds.
A penchant for elaborate theatrical effects is also a trademark.
In the Taubenslags' version of Pinocchio, an "underwater"
ballet is lit with black light and features huge colorful fish.
A shipwreck scene in Beauty and the Beast also makes use of black
light, strobe, and sounds of thunder and lightning.
Taubenslag Productions also employs a multicultural cast that
includes disabled actors. During the 1993-1994 season he staged
a production of Alice and Wonderland featuring an African-American
Alice. And in a recent production of Peter Pan, a boy with cerebral
palsy played the part of Michael, the youngest child.
Approximately 50 actors are in the company, most of them adults.
Lauen Bodmer, a veteran of many productions at the Off-Broadstreet
Theater in Hopewell, is making her children's theater debut as
Snow White. She says the company's reputation helped influence
her decision to join the show. "I wanted to do this because
there is a lot of interaction with the audience," she says.
"It's really great."
Only a few of the shows, Snow White among them, have children
in the cast. Six of the seven dwarfs are played by kids, all of
them called from the Taubenslag's Theater Camp, which is run out
of the Middlesex county College every summer.
For 11 year-old Michael Ladolcetta, being part of the production
is a dream come true. "I really like it," he says of
his role as Doc, the smartest of the seven dwarfs. "I can
get out all of my feelings when I'm acting on stage."
Snow Whte and the Seven Dwarfs will be performed at the Middlesex
County Performing Arts Center, 155 Mill Road, Edison at 1pm and
2:30pm, January 14, & 15.
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