"The Jack Tales"
In the first "Jack Tale," this one involving Jack the Giant Slayer, "Jack" (played by Alyvia Kitchen), right, hides from a group of giants by pretending to be a tree before manipulating two of them to off each other.
Yet one of the giants (Cameron Hempstead), right, saw through the disguise, much to Jack's chagrin.
Yet after a series of challenges, Jack gets the better of the giant by getting him to eat a "knife" meal, and thereby slaying the giants.
In the next Jack Tale, this one Jack and the Silver Dollar, this version of Jack (Hempstead, left) leaves the silversmithy where he had apprenticed, trading in his broom to the proprietor (Azlyn Killoy) for a handful of silver to go start his life in the big city.
Yet unfortunately Jack ran afoul of a crooked trader (Dylan Willis, middle) who gave him the bum steer, or rather mule (Reece Hardy), in exchange for his silver. But he needed a ride into town, right?
The trades only got worse from there, first exchanging the mule to a farmer (Killoy) for a broken-down cow (Willis). The narrator (Kitchen) was not impressed.
Jack thought he got himself a deal by trading that cow for a pig (Link Marthaller) but it turned out to be a pig-in-a-poke.
After getting fed up with the pig, Jack traded her in for a shiny silver dollar (didn't he start out with a handful of silver?), which he promptly lost after throwing it at a truth-telling frog (Marthaller). So, it was back to his apprenticeship for him.
Though a Jack Tale per se, the story of Angry John (Willis, left) was in the same folktale milieu. In this story, Angry John -- who lived up to his name almost his entire life -- does a good deed for St. Peter in disguise, and is rewarded with three wishes. Wishes that he appeared to waste on traps in his workshop to keep any bothersome visitors at bay. And who should come for a visit but the Old Devil (Hempstead) and his Devil Kids (Kitchen and Marthaller), who thinking Angry John had changed his ways went to make sure to bring him back into their evil clutches.
Angry John or Angry Devil? The Devil sure wasn't happy after both his Devil Kids got trapped by Angry John.
Angry John outsmarts the Devil, who can't seem to find him before he, too, got snatched in a trap.
At long last, Angry John passed away and his first stop was at The Good Place, where St. Peter (Killoy) greets him with a firm admonishment at the life he led.
St. Peter goes checking through the record of Angry John's life, finding a whopping one good deed...
... against a lifetime full of bad deeds.
And yet when Angry John went to the Other Place, that Mean Old Devil and his Devil Kids didn't want anything to do with him either, so he was doomed to walk the world as a ghost.
For the final Jack Tale, Jack and the Witch, Jack's brothers (Willis and Killoy) refused to take him along on an adventure -- an adventure where they crossed paths with a Witch (Kitchen) who made them an offer they couldn't refuse by having them for dinner, er, over for dinner.
Jack's brothers managed to escape, but weren't particularly helpful to the Witch's ensorcelled belongings including her mill (Hardy and Hempstead) so they too got ensorcelled -- in their case, being turned into stone.
But then Jack (Marthaller) came along and he was nice to the Witch's animated property, in this case doing the mill a good turn, literally.
For his kindness to them, the mill kept Jack hidden from the Witch...
...so that Jack could spring his trap by giving the mill another good turn -- and the Witch a bad one, getting her caught in the mill.
After letting the Witch loose on the promise that she would release his brothers, the Witch got greedy and went into the mill looking for the gold they had taken from her.
And it didn't quite work out in her favor. The end.
Before this past school year ended, the Open Theatre Project completed its 11th touring show, "The Jack Tales," as part of its Theatre for Young Audiences series. This photo series, taken at the show's performance at Fred Moodry Intermediate School, is offered free to our online readers in gratitude for the theatre program and to raise awareness for its upcoming Kids Musical Theatre Day Camp, July 7-18 at Copper Village Museum and Art Center. For more information, call (406) 533-5269 or email sue@coppervillage.org.
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