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Yo Ho!

2014 · Lincoln Land Community College

Yo Ho! was the fall 2014 "On the Road" production of Ken Bradbury's Lincoln Land Community College Traveling Theatre class — the touring children's show that served, in Ken's words, as the "show piece" of Jacksonville's Lincoln Land campus. Written by Ken for his students over the late summer, it was a pirate-themed comedy built around an opening pirate song ("Yo Ho"), British accents, growling buccaneers, a swing dance, and plenty of looney fun. Ken raided the costume shed for pirate clothing in late August and spent September blocking and rehearsing the show with a wide-ranging cast that stretched from an 8th-grader to full-time college students.

As with every year of the class, Yo Ho! was a wholly original, devised-and-staged piece — never repeated year to year — created on its feet rather than from a book. In November and December 2014 the troupe took the show on the road, performing for elementary schools across the Jacksonville area before the class turned to its companion holiday production for downtown Jacksonville.

The Story

A boy named Rupert, plucked from the audience after telling host KB he wants to be a pirate, is yanked onstage as a stowaway when the fearsome crew of the Jolly Dodger — led by Captain Nosalia Picker — sniffs him out (their crewmate Snotrag has "the best nose on the Seven Seas"). The pirates, it turns out, have plenty of gold and jewels but no imagination, so they steal it from other people, stuffing it into "booty bags," and they sail to the local school to raid the children's imaginations. After their schemes fail, Rupert tells a story proving imagination can't be stolen — it's already inside everyone — and the pirates discover their own creativity, learning to sing, dance, paint, and play.

Songs and Numbers

A short, fast, comic pirate adventure built around music, dance, and mime, in performance order:

• Opening fanfare and pirates' roar — trumpet, kettle drums, and the crew's roar as the flags rise
• "Yo-Ho" — the opening pirate song: "Ba-dump, ba-dump… Yo-Ho! Yo-Ho!"
• "There's a Simple Explanation" — the pirates explain they have no imagination, so they steal it
• "If You Really Want to Be a Pirate" — the crew dresses Rupert into a pirate (one failed attempt puts him in an old-fashioned green swimsuit, "like a green popsicle")
• The Booty Bag Dance — the stolen-imagination bags come to life and dance (Scabby and Flushpot hidden inside)
• Finale — a closing number by cast member Elisabeth Werries, with Mortimer beginning to sing

A running gag has the crew threatening to toss Rupert into the ocean; Mortimer (whose tongue was supposedly bitten off by a tiger shark) communicates only by mime and charades, and the booty bags hold imagination stolen from the local band director (a bugle), the art teacher (a paint brush), and others — with blanks in the script for each school's real teachers' names.

Cast

Roles and the students who played them (from the script's title page and pirate-names list):

• Captain Nosalia Picker — Elisabeth Werries
• Rupert — Kyler Miller
• Mortimer — Brennan Pool
• Snotrag — Hannah Werries
• Snaggle — Ally Bunfill
• Blackliver — Elly Crawford
• Flushpot — Mackenzie Musch
• Flemchucker — Emily Burns
• Dogsbreath — Abby Link
• Scabby — Brittany Davis
• Lickspitter — Alex Stanberry
• Gagger — Erika Jennings
• Hacker — Clara Lee
• Wartbuster — Kameron Schnepper
• Scumbucket — Rachel Skillett

Production Notes

This was the first-semester touring show of the 2014–15 LLCC Traveling Theatre class. Ken began writing the play in late August 2014, raided the costume shed for pirate outfits on a "hot, hot day," and blocked the show through September, noting both the joys and the challenges of an unusually large, lively cast with several newcomers. Bev (a longtime volunteer "mom" to the cast) ran sound, freeing Ken to direct.

The "On the Road" tour ran four days:

• November 20, 2014 — North Jacksonville, Franklin, Central Kindergarten, Trinity
• November 21, 2014 — Roodhouse, Murrayville, Early Years (Jacksonville), Salem Lutheran
• December 4, 2014 — Washington, Westfair, South Jacksonville, Triopia
• December 5, 2014 — Griggsville, Meredosia, Eisenhower, Our Savior's

After the touring show, the same class turned to its companion holiday production, Ho! Ho! Snow!, for downtown Jacksonville. Ken's journal cover for the semester read "On the Road... 2014."

Photos