Shivers

A Theater Review

Let’s hear it for small, spunky theaters!

Unlike the large theatrical institutions around the area (I’ll exclude their names), that seem to mostly rely upon popular movies from 20-30 years ago that’ve now been resuscitated into stage shows, smaller venues with perhaps 80 seats aren’t afraid of staging new or experimental productions.

Example?

Meadville Community Theatre’s current play, “Shivers.”

Written by local playwright, Geoff Hall (who also directed it with Alicia Greathouse), this is also MCT’s first children’s production and a fun show to see—if just for watching young actors learning this craft.

“Shivers”is a fairy tale of an unnamed child (Connor Prall) simply referred to as “Boy,”who spooks his father (Levi Papinchak) and brother (Owen Waters) by never being scared, or getting “the shivers.”Banished from his family, he eventually meets a queen, (Lydia Green) and her princess-daughter, Ivy (Morgan Sleet).  Challenged to stay in a haunted castle for three days and win the hand of the princess, Boy takes up the challenge.  After all, what does he have to lose?

Once there, he’s taunted by ghosts and a malevolent evil.

Will Boy get the shivers? Will he learn what fear is? And will he marry the beautiful princess?

Truly an enjoyable play with an endearing cast.

And while it’s fun to watch the newbie actors, I wish some of the performers could’ve projected their voices a little more and not rushed their lines, which, occasionally made it hard to grasp their dialogue. 

But, hey, they’re learning, right?

That said, while the weather around here is still making up its mind, forgo the potential shivers outside and enjoy “Shivers”inside MCT’s warm Penny Smith Theater!         

***Gregory Greenleaf

Shivers continues through March 22.For more information, visit www.mctbackstage.com