Keystone play shows kids importance of balance in life

After the Lake Dillon Theatre Company had run through yet another take of the big musical finale of “The Ant and the Grasshopper,” on Wednesday morning, the actors heard the three most infamous words in theater circles from their director: “One more time.”

The actors in “The Ant and Grasshopper” comprise the same group director Chris Alleman hired for his summer series, and they must learn hundreds of lines, moves and songs for the five different shows they star in this summer. So, Wednesday, it took about three and a half hours to get through a quick kids' play, partly because it was the first time the actors rehearsed in the Quaking Aspen Amphitheatre, rather than in the Lake Dillon Theatre, so Alleman kept pausing scenes to get blocking (actor positions) right.

“It always comes together in the final few rehearsals,” Alleman said.

Alleman said he's confident the group will be ready by this morning's opening. Considering the actors got the final script on Sunday and the finishing touches to the music were completed on Wednesday, everyone looked remarkably composed at their Wednesday morning rehearsal.

“We've been scrambling back and forth, but it's the pace you have to keep to open six shows in a summer,” assistant director and sound engineer Ben Whitmore said. “We're tweaking, doing theater stuff. The actors are a very talented group of people.”

The story

“The Ant and the Grasshopper” is definitely designed with kids in mind. The costumes are bright and colorful and do a good job of depicting people as larger-than-life insects. The songs are loud, energetic and catchy in a Sesame Street fashion, and the plot is straight-up Disney.

The story revolves around a workaholic Ant and a happy-go-lucky Grasshopper who are neighbors in Central Park. The Ant can't stand the Grasshopper's unwillingness to do anything productive, and the Grasshopper finds the Ant's overzealous work ethic boring. While they may argue at first, they end up learning a life lesson from each other about the value of both work and play.

“It all comes down to finding balance in your life,” Whitmore said.

Their are other balancing acts that work themselves out in the course of the play. The blue-collar Ladybug falls for a Lightning Bug who has drifted in from the Upper East Side, and they inevitably resolve their class differences and end up together. Finally, a Cockroach with a sweet tooth learns to like her vegetables.

While undeniably campy, “The Ant and the Grasshopper” has a definite appeal for those not in the Disney Channel demographic. There are a few sly moments in the script (penned by Alleman and the show's producer Josh Blancherd) that deal with political correctness and stereotypes, particularly the Ladybug's insistence that he be referred to as a “sanitation engineer” instead of a garbage man.

Another clever addition is the Ant's big epiphany near the end of the show. The Ant is in the middle of an eloquent speech to himself when the grasshopper interrupts him, at which point the Ant bursts out with “You're interrupting my monologue!” and the Ladybug recites the history of internal monologues, their conventional use in plays and their origins in Shakespearean drama. It's a well-done sequence that will no doubt produce chuckles in the older portion of the audience.

Until the show opened, the troupe was concentrating on nailing down their lines, lyrics and movements. During a scene where the bugs must unite to build a wall to save themselves from an imminent flood, the cast started grabbing rocks pell-mell and racing from one end of the stage to the other in a whirlwind frenzy.

“You ever seen a train wreck?” Alleman said to Whitmore. “We gotta go back.” The cast groaned.