Lake Park to stage Scandinavian fairy tale

"East of the Sun, West of the Moon," a children's play written by Brian Kral and based on a Scandinavian fairy tale, will be presented this week by the Lake Park High School theater department.

Directed by Seth Hible, the show features a young girl battling supernatural forces to free a young man trapped by a terrible spell.

Karen is on a quest into the dark Scandinavian wilderness populated by magical trolls, mysterious hags and talking gargoyles. Without hesitation she struggles to save a young man from the curse that makes him "a bear by day and a man by night."

Humor and heroic adventure accentuate this adaptation of the epic of a girl achieving adulthood. The play will be enhanced using life-size puppets and other theatrical "trickery" to include live music to further dramatize the story.

Hible said he chose the show because of its ability to provide larger-than-life characters such as trolls and bears. He decided to use the Broadway production of "The Lion King," with its larger-than-life masks and puppets to create the supernatural trolls, gargoyles and bears.

In addition, the play has been double cast to allow more students to participate. Each cast will perform one public performance and two student performances.

Public show times are 7 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday, Oct. 6 and 7, in the Dice Auditorium at Lake Park East High School, 600 S. Medinah Road, Roselle.

Tickets are free and available at lptheatreboxoffice@lphs.org.

The cast features Hanna Bonilla, Katie Steiner, George Martinez, Clarissa Consoli, Morgan Rahe, Alexis Isbell, Pari Apostolakos, Nick Hernandez, Kat Koptik, Maddie Vandergriff, Emilie Kroner, Jenna Brown, Amisha Mahoyan, Bella Koptik, Katie Bosse, Kelsey Woodbury, Serena Merchant, Emily Tayfel, Qindeel Kamran, Kajol Topiwaia, Andrea DeLeon, Christiana Gatbunton, Jake Boryszewski, Lauren Riker, Kenny Szatkowski, Paul Pleticha and Jesslyn Cohen.