The Magic Key
2006 · Lincoln Land Community College Traveling Theatre
The Magic Key was a 2006 children's mini-musical created and toured by Ken Bradbury's Lincoln Land Community College theatre class (THE 110, "Theatre Practice Seminar"), based at the college's WREC campus. The show grew out of a hands-on course in children's theatre, in which the student-actors developed the concept together, learned the skills of stage movement, dance, and articulation, and then took the finished piece on the road to elementary schools across the Jacksonville, Illinois area. The cast drew students from Routt, Triopia, and A/C Central high schools, and what had once been a Triopia project became a true community-college traveling troupe.
The story opens on a bare stage littered with wooden boxes and colorful strips of cloth. As the music begins, the actors dash in and, dancing, build their own set in front of the audience, calling out, "We need... a choice!" From this burst of energy springs the tale of a young girl who, before falling asleep, wishes for "the key to be everything I want to be." The Wish Fairy answers, producing a golden Magic Key from behind a child's ear — but the key carries a lesson: happiness is something you have to want more than anything and then use well, through hard work. Playful, participatory, and warm, the thirty-minute show wove audience children directly into the action (borrowing a girl's real name for the heroine) while delivering its central theme: the importance of staying in school and working hard to get a good education.
Cast
- Jeremy Little
- Derek Carls
- Erich Nobis
- Lauren Beal
- Rachel Schone
- Jillian Preston
- Marie Meuner
- Hannah Stephens
- Dylan Schnake
- Hannah Johnson
- Gracie Johnson
- Brian Tonry
- Cody Nordsiek
- Hope Kyrouac
Production Notes
The Magic Key was written and directed by Ken Bradbury as the production project for his Lincoln Land Community College course THE 110, "Theatre Practice Seminar," offered at the WREC campus in an eight-week format running roughly October 14 through December 11, 2006. Students earned transferable college credit while developing the script as a group, mastering stage skills, and evaluating the experience through a class journal — many of which survive among the show's papers.
The troupe gave a home performance for friends, family, and the Triopia Pre-School on December 3, 2006, then took to the road. Over the following days the company traveled by van out of the Jacksonville LLCC site to perform the half-hour show at a string of area elementary schools — among them North Jacksonville, Westfair, Washington, Lincoln, Murrayville, Eisenhower, and Franklin — needing little more than an electric outlet at each stop.
Costuming was governed by a single word: COLOR. Actors wore bright, mismatched basics layered with rags, scarves, and bandanas, deliberately avoiding any school slogans or identifiers so the audience wouldn't be distracted by guessing who came from where. Teachers at each school received a flier of follow-up discussion questions and activities to extend the play's theme in the classroom.
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