The Brief
The live action play “Pinocchio” is being performed this weekend in St. Petersburg.
With lyrics adapted to English, the musical is performed by the St. Pete Opera.
The performance is a great introduction to the performing arts with a familiar storyline and timeless tale.
ST PETERSBURG, Fla. – The children’s storybook about a hand-crafted puppet that comes to life will be performed live on stage this weekend in St. Petersburg.
The backstory
“Pinocchio” is a known story. In fact, it could be said that it is a timeless tale made familiar by the different variations of the story that have appeared in books, videos and even a Walt Disney movie.
The original tale comes from an 1883 Italian book by Carlo Collodi written about the Tuscany town where the author spent his childhood.
The St. Pete Opera took that original story and adapted it into a live-action play which they perform on stage at Opera Central on 1st Avenue South.
What they’re saying
Julie Glicksberg plays the puppet Pinocchio in this rendition, and Matteo Adams appears as the Clockmaker Geppetto.
“This is actually the first show that I’ve done the title role,” she said. “When I was trying to figure out how I wanted to portray the character, I felt like I got a really good sense of how I wanted Pinocchio to look as a puppet and his transformation into a real boy.”
Geppetto crafts the puppet from wood and gazes at the creation with the wish of Pinocchio being a “real boy.”
The blue fairy, played by Maria Nunez, hears that wish and brings the puppet to life.
Ben Ross and Ryan Kosinski appear as bad influences on Pinocchio. They play the wolf and the cat in the story. They are the ones who lead the puppet on a path making wrong choices.
“Might I suggest that school is a dangerous place for a little wooden head with no right answers in it,” said Wolf (Ross) on stage.
Wolf and cat encourage Pinocchio to give them his money and to lie about going to school.
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Geppetto asks about the 1st day of school, and we see the live action take on the challenge of a growing nose as the puppet lies to his father.
“That’s when we see the magic trick of the nose,” shared Jessica Burton the stage director. “This is a little bit of a different story than what we’re normally used to.”
She encouraged those interested that this performance would be more like the movie which they would be more familiar with.
What you can do
To see the live action play performed at St. Pete Opera, performances are at 3 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday at Opera Central.
You can learn more about them and purchase tickets by clicking here.
The Source
This story was written based on live interviews at the St. Pete Opera with the performers of the play Pinocchio.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com ’
