MAT's 'Happily Ever Before' opens tonight

Montana Actors’ Theatre will be putting on a youth production of “Happily Ever Before” featuring a cast replete with first-time actors starting tonight at 7 p.m.

MAT Director of Youth and Children’s Theater Angela Pratt said the cast is made up of people from as young a 5 years old to freshman college students, and is directed by a talented group of young interns.

This particular play, sponsored by Havre Ford, has been worked on by the group since the beginning of June when young people from the area auditioned and were assigned roles, Pratt said.

She said since then they’ve been rehearsing, building sets, creating and modifying costumes and working to make the play as good as it can be.

The play is an unusual take on classic fairy tales, focusing on the schemes and antics of the villains as they plot to take revenge after their respective stories end.

“The play is about the fairy tale villains trying to get their happily ever after, or at least make sure the princesses do not,” Pratt said.

She said the play is comedy-heavy, and the young group has been working hard on comedic timing, and getting comfortable with being silly on stage.

She said the group of interns directing the play this year is particularly talented, and as a result, some of the typical pitfalls and bumps in the road they’d normally face during production haven’t really manifested this year.

However, Pratt said, it is still a tremendous amount of work for the young people getting everything together.

She said it’s often hard to imagine just how much goes into producing a play until someone tries it, but despite the work, the interns, hailing from colleges across the state, have done an incredible job this year.

“They’ve put in some amazing work,” she said.

She said one of the most difficult things the group always has to confront is the anxiety of acting on stage for the first time, which she said is almost always difficult that first time around.

But, she said, even with a cast made up of 50 percent first-time actors, there are still plenty with experience for the newer actors to lean on.

Pratt said after the first time on stage, things immediately become easier for actors, and that first foray often gives them a deeper understanding of their characters that they can build off of in future shows.

“It’s pretty interesting to watch,” she said. “ … Seeing people start to get that theater bug.”

She said this will be the first time MAT has done this play, as they choose a new one each year for the interns to produce, and she wants people to understand that these interns and the actors they direct are really doing all the work.

Pratt said she is the director of the program, but everything from the directing of the play itself down to the acting is all handled by the group of young people, and this is their project through and through.

“Happily Ever Before” will run tonight, Friday and Saturday of this week and Thursday, Friday and Saturday of next week at 7 p.m. at The Little Theatre in Montana State University-Northern’s Cowan Hall.