Puppet project

Jason McGraw explained his initial hopes to feature a variety of puppets with cast members in “Finding Nemo Jr.” had been viewed as ambitious.

Those dreams, though, have turned into reality.

Jay County Civic Theatre will be performing “Finding Nemo Jr.,” the musical version of the 2003 Disney/Pixar film next week. Shows are set for 7 p.m. Thursday, Friday, June 8 and June 9 at Arts Place, 131 E. Walnut St., Portland.

The hour-long show features a similar story to “Finding Nemo,” following clownfish Marlin and blue tang Dory in their search for Marlin’s missing son, Nemo, who also has an adventure of his own with some colorful characters.

McGraw, director of Jay County Civic Theatre’s latest production, explained his vision for the show included cast members puppeteering their characters on stage.

“I couldn’t see it any other way,” said McGraw. “It’s an opportunity for the kids to utilize puppets where we’ve never utilized puppets before.”

Jay County Civic Theatre has created puppets for single characters in past shows, such as Audrey II in “Little Shop of Horrors” and Olaf in “Frozen Jr.,” but never with the majority of the cast.

Civic theatre members hand-crafted puppets depicting sharks, fish, octopi, jellyfish and an assortment of other sea creatures. Some ocean-dwellers are being finished in the days leading up to the show.

“It exceeds my expectations by a lot,” said McGraw of the puppets created locally. “But it’s what I knew they would do because they just do exceptional work.”

The group has also rented several puppets for the “tank gang crew” — fish that Nemo finds himself trapped with — and turtles from Cincinnati Children’s Theatre.

Moving around with puppets has given the show a new spin compared to its past performances, both for the audience and the cast members.

“(The kids) get a kick out of it because they’re finding it’s a lot different from normal dancing, you know?” said choreographer Ric VanSkyock.

He explained the large props give different emphasis to cast members’ expressions, playing on the audience’s imagination.

“With the puppets, you’re very limited, but that gives you a different venue or different way at looking at choreography on the stage,” he explained. “Without the use of their hands fully, we’re working a lot on interpretation.”

The 18-and-younger cast features Jay County residents Ali McGraw and Alex Ardizzone as Nemo and Marlin, respectively, and Grace Jansen of St. Henry, Ohio, as Dory. Others in the nearly 40-member cast include Olivia Smith (Gill), Joscie LeFevre (Crush), Kenzie Huey (Bruce), Ella Littler (Bubbles) and Aubrey Millspaugh (Coral).

Jansen performed in Jay County Civic Theatre’s “A Christmas Story” in December. She has also been in several shows — those include starring as Grace Farrell in “Annie” and Cogsworth in “Beauty and the Beast” — with the theatre club at St. Henry High School. Dory, she explained, is a bubbly, ditzy fish teeming with optimism.

“She’s just in her own little world,” she said, mentioning her parts in a few of the songs, including “Dory’s Ditty” and “Just Keep Swimming,” the latter of which is named after Dory’s mantra. 

Music director Joseph Bailey noted the largest difference from the movie is the addition of songs, which all emanate a “Disney feel,” he said.

He referenced “Fish Are Friends, Not Food,” which plays on a trio of sharks — Bruce, Chum and Anchor, performed by Huey and Junior Blazquez, Maley Recker and Ella Littler, and Kaylynn Clark and Inara Sanderson, respectively — attempting to make friends with fish instead of eating them.

“It’s really jazzy,” said Bailey, pointing to the saxophone and trumpets in the song.

Ardizzone previously starred in Jay County Civic Theatre’s productions of “Moana Jr.” as Maui and “Frosty the Snowman.” He described his character, Marlin, as a “helicopter parent.”

“Nemo’s the only kid that he’s got, so when he loses Nemo, it’s like the world shatters around him, and now he’s got to go find Nemo,” he said. “Marlin is definitely a character who, through the course of just an hour, goes through insane character development and emotional landscapes.”

“This is a very fun show. I like the music, I like the characters, I love acting as Marlin,” he added. “I’m just excited to put this on in front of an audience.”

Tickets are available by visiting bit.ly/JCCTNemo24, calling (260) 726-4809 or visiting Arts Place. They are $10 for students and $12 for adults until Sunday, after which they will be $12 and $14, respectively.

“I hope that we can get four sell-out audiences,” said Bailey. “My favorite thing, working with civic theatre, is the junior shows … during the show process, you see them improve so much … so it’s seeing all their hard work, and I just hope that they have a really full house and a really good audience to show it off to.”

Jason McGraw shared similar thoughts.

“It’s about getting them an opportunity to do something new and exciting to breathe new energy into a theatric experience for them, and giving them something different that they haven’t had before,” he said, noting that in this case, it had been the addition of puppets. 

“I’m really excited to see the audience’s reaction to how wide-scale we did this,” said McGraw. “I don’t think they’re expecting what they’re going to get.”