December 11, 2023
Elementary students and community members flock to see The Gingerbread Pirate
Providing a fresh, funny story that sparkled with all the excitement of a pirate adventure and all the magic of Christmas morning, The Gingerbread Pirate was performed Wednesday through Saturday inside Cowley College鈥檚 Robert Brown Theatre.
A total of 1,130 elementary students and faculty attended the four matinee performances on Wednesday and Thursday before the public performances on Friday and Saturday. On Saturday, a special holiday activity was offered before the performance in the Earle N. Wright Community Room, where children could decorate gingerbread cookies and have hot chocolate. The event was co-sponsored by Cowley Theatre and Cowley Education.
Cowley College鈥檚 Nick Albrecht directed the show and wrote the adaptation. The original children's book is by Kristin Kladstrup.
鈥淭he process of adapting a book to the stage was really interesting,鈥� Albrecht said. 鈥淭here was a lot of learning for the students and myself in terms of working on a brand new script. The audiences were great, especially in finding out what worked and what didn鈥檛 as part of the show. We are very grateful to have had the opportunity to present it to our audiences, both young and young at heart.鈥�
Cast list:
JIM鈥van Quiett
JIM鈥檚 MOTHER鈥aleyah Evans
CAPTAIN COOKIE鈥igiza Nasyrova
WAVY鈥licia Hunter
DOTS鈥evin Jarrell
PATCHY鈥harles Barlow Jr.
GREYBEARD鈥nna Sade
PUFFYPANTS / MOUSE鈥endall Cook
SANTA CLAUS鈥pecial Guest TBA
Student Designers:
STAGE MANAGER鈥annah Brean
ASST. STAGE MANAGER鈥rys Pugh
SET DESIGN鈥atrick Burgess-Clark
LIGHTING DESIGN鈥milia Baca
SOUND DESIGN鈥aycee Schulte
COSTUME DESIGN鈥arime Cazares Castillo & Evan Quiett
Rama Peroo | Director of Institutional Communication
Cowley College
125 S. 2nd Street
Arkansas City, KS 67005
rama.peroo@cowley.edu