With more than 100 volunteers, ‘Wizard of Oz’ will truly be a community production

By James Grob, jgrob@charlescitypress.com

A stage musical production is a huge endeavor for a community theater.

It’s more than just actors, singers and dancers — as if they don’t put in enough work.

Charles City’s own Stony Point Players are utilizing the talents of more than 100 people from the community —  and nearby communities — as the theater group puts together its current production of “The Wizard of Oz.”

All of them are volunteering their time and labor, many in areas that will get no applause or glory on opening night.

The three shows will be at the North Grand Auditorium at 500 North Grand Avenue. Dates are 7 p.m. Saturday, June 30; 2 p.m. Sunday, July 1; and 7 p.m. Monday, July 2. Tickets will go on sale to the public on June 18. Cost is $7 for adults and $5 for children. Reserved-seat tickets can be ordered online at showtix4u.com or by phone at 866-967-8167. Remaining seats will be sold at the door before each show.

While the actors are currently busy learning their lines, songs and stage directions, Bob Frascht is just as busy building the set.

Frascht said he built more than 20 sets for school productions back in the 1980s and ’90s, and has built between five and 10 for the Stony Point Players.

“It’s been fun, but I’ve missed doing it,” he said.

Frascht is also president of the Stony Point Players, and this show has been his passion for the last year or so, as the local Charles City-area theater group has gone more than five years without a stage production.

“I’ve been trying to get the Players back in motion again and we’ve got a good group together working on it now, and I hope to keep this group together after this production is done so we can do another one,” he said.

Named for Stony Point Road, the location of a barn where the group performed in 1968, the Stony Point Players have been a community theater group in Charles City since the 1960s. Frascht was vice-president for years.

“Some people moved away, and we’ve had a few different things fall away, and I decided we better get this thing back going again,” he said. “I contacted people, and had some interest, and was lucky enough to find a director.”

That director is Michelle Grob, who moved to Charles City to teach in the district at the start of the 2017-18 school year. She’s been involved in more than 70 stage productions over the last 25 years.

Grob is assisted by student director Ryan Wolfe, and the musical director is Derek Sturtevant, in his second year as the CCHS vocal director. Sturtevant directed the high school fall musical “The Adams Family.”

Sturtevant has assembled an orchestra of 17 pieces for “Wizard,” all musicians from the community.

Frascht has taken on most of the set building himself, making pillars, fence posts and one of the more interesting pieces — Auntie Em’s front porch — which breaks away during the show’s famous “twister” scene.

“This porch has been fun to build, because I started out with just the platform and built it up,” Frascht said. “With theater, you don’t necessarily have to have it square straight level, but you can’t have it off too far. This is a fairly simple set for me. I’ve built three-story sets on this stage. It takes a little engineering to do it, but I find it fun to do.”

He said that when he’s done with a set piece, he turns it over to a painter to get it ready for the stage.

“When the painter gets done painting it, she makes my work look good,” said Frascht.

The set painter he’s referring to is Janiece Bergland, a longtime local choir director and artist who was inducted into Charles City Fine Arts Hall of Fame two years ago. She is an experienced stage designer, private voice teacher and choir director, painter and a signature member of the Iowa Watercolor Society. Frascht’s set pieces are in good hands with Bergland.

Faith Slinger and Amy Wolfe, two former Charles City students, are giving up part of their summer break from college to choreograph the show. The two are bringing a young energy to the dancing, according to Grob and Sturtevant.

One dance number has 39 people on the stage at one time, and the choreographers are making sure each person has their chance to be in the front row, where their family and friends in the audience can see them.

On stage — in addition to the principal roles of Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Lion — there will be 20 jitterbugs, 39 Ozians, 10 poppies, two witches, five farmers, some talking trees, a professor, a grumpy spinster and a humbug wizard, among others. Also, about 40 third- and fourth-graders have been cast to play the roles of Munchkins.

All that makes for a lot of work for costume designer Sandy Peterson and make-up chief Manda Slessor. Slessor has been hard at work for the last month researching ideas, planning makeup, constructing prosthetics, and training her crew. She and her crew will have close to 90 faces to make up for the show.

Peterson has been at it since April, tracking down costumes and creating her own, with the help of a small crew. Peterson is nearly done with the basic costuming.

Cast member Justin DeVore is in charge of publicity, as well as special video and sound effects for the show, and Linda Brant — long time veteran director for both the Stony Point Players and at Charles City High School — has lent her vast expertise to the production in a number of areas.

Frascht has built most of his set pieces in the last two weeks. He got off to a late start, due to the school district needing the stage for end-of-the-year concerts and assemblies. It’s caused his work to be a little hectic at time, but for Frascht, it will be worth it, if it gets the Stony Point Players back on track.

“That’s what it takes to get it going again — a project — and this is a big project,” said Frascht.

Editor’s note: Reporter James Grob is playing the Wizard in this production of “The Wizard of Oz.” His wife, Michelle Grob, is the director.