Carrollton presents ‘James and the Giant Peach, Jr.’

Sydney Tepen, Maysen Steinacher and Julia Heil in one of the many musical numbers during the production of James and the Giant Peach. (Carmen Ensinger/Greene Prairie Press)

By Carmen Ensinger

Carrollton High School presented James and the Giant Peach Jr. as their spring production this year over the weekend of Friday through Sunday, April 19-21.
Play director Jean Heil said It has always been her dream to put on her production of this play.
“When I was principal at another district in Godfrey, I was also directing all of our school productions and we had chosen James and the Giant Peach as our school production that year,” she said. “Then, COVID hit and we couldn’t do it. So, it has always been a dream of mine to do it. It is a really fun show that I wanted to do so I was excited to be able to bring it to Carrollton.”
Even though it was a high school production, most of the cast was junior high students. In fact, only six of the cast of 19 were high school students.
“We realized, unfortunately, that we don’t have enough high school students to put on an entire production,” Heil said. “I have had lots of years of experience directing middle school kids so I said let’s see if we can get some middle school kids excited about the production, which we did.”
The production combined fifth grade through eighth grade middle schoolers with the high school students.
“Our oldest kids this year were sophomores,” Heil said. “Last year we had two seniors in the show but this year the highest level in high school was 10th grade,” Heil said. “Only six of 19 cast were high school kids -the rest were fifth through eighth grade kids.”
Last year, Carrollton performed Shrek and Heil said she used that experience in choosing this year’s production.
“Last year, when we finished Shrek, I kind of had an idea who from the high school would probably return this year,” Heil said. “I also knew who the kids were from the middle school who would be able to handle some of the roles as well.”
Two of the major roles, that of Spiker and Sponge, were filled by sophomore Julia Heil and freshman Sydney Tepen, respectively. Many of the other roles were filled by middle schoolers. And, in fact, just a week before the performance, disaster struck.
“We had two students that were determined to be ineligible and not permitted to perform a week before the scheduled performance,” Heil said. “That left us to scramble around to get some kids to get some kids into some roles in a very short very short period of time.”
Heil said that these were major roles, including the roles of the grasshopper and the centipede.
“I moved one of my students who had originally been a choreographer into one of the roles and an ensemble member into the other role,” Heil said. “It worked out beautifully.”
The other kids worked approximately four months on the production.
“We auditioned the week before Christmas break and then we had our read through right before we left on Christmas break,” Heil said. “Then, I sent scripts home with everyone so they could start learning their lines. Since then, we have had rehearsal usually four or five days a week from 3:30 to 5 p.m. starting the first week in January.”
This is Heil’s last year at Carrollton as she has accepted a position at Calhoun as their new elementary/junior high school principal. However, she said she would be more than willing to continue helping on a volunteer basis with the spring play.
“I am going to at least see if they will approve me as a volunteer helper on that end,” Heil said.
“If someone else steps up, great, but I don’t see that happening.”