shop online at www.missourivalleyshopper.com March 26, 2019 • Page 11 LCTC Prepares To Bring ‘One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest’ To Dakota Theatre BY RANDY DOCKENDORF randy.dockendorf@yankton.net Rich Wright didn’t plan to take the reins as director of “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest,” the next Lewis and Clark Theatre Company (LCTC) production. “This is the eighth play I’ve directed for the theater. I had just directed ‘James and the Giant Peach’ that ran last December, and I was thinking of taking off from directing for a year,” he said. “I really wanted for once to be in a play. I was cast (for ‘Cuckoo’s Nest’) and was settling in for an acting role.” Then, fate stepped in and changed his plans. “Our director decided not to continue with the production. It was dire, because it was the middle of December,” he said. “If we were going to go ahead (with the play), we really had to get moving. I said I’d step in and direct it. I recast my part so I could take over the role of director, with Theresa Turner as my assistant director. She’s wonderful and has really become my right arm.” As they say, the show must go on. The play was rescheduled from its original February dates to April 4-6 and 11-13 at 7:30 p.m. and April 7 and 14 at 2 p.m. in Dakota Theatre. For Wright, “Cuckoo’s Nest” presents an interesting and challenging theatrical assignment. “I didn’t have a part in choosing the play, but I think they were ready for some kind of a heavyweight production,” he said. “This was one of the big classics, and I put a ton of music in it. I really like to use sound effects, and I wrote 50 pages of notes for our light and sound director, Dejay Langel. He’s terrific. He has so much talent and has been such a great tech person.” According to the LCTC website, “‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ follows a charming rogue who contrives to serve a short sentence in an airy mental institution rather than in a prison. This, he learns, was a mistake. He clashes with the head nurse, a fierce martinet. He quickly takes over the yard and both find out who really rules the roost.’” “Cuckoo’s Nest” became both a popular book and movie. The film won nine Oscars, including Best Picture. In the 1975 film, Jack Nicholson portrayed Randle Patrick McMurphy, the prisoner sent to the mental institution. Louise Fletcher portrayed Nurse Ratched, who ran the psychiatric ward with an iron fist. She used a variety of methods, including abuse, medication and shock therapy. In the process, the battle between McMurphy and Ratched exerted an impact on the other patients. When he stepped into the LCTC director’s role, Wright faced a number of immediate decisions. “I had to piece things together when I took over the play. We were pretty short of people, and we needed to get going,” he said. Wright decided to shake things up, recasting the roles to fit the available cast members. “The play was written in the 1950s, and the script was originally all male. That was the situation back then,” he said. “It was hard to get men to try out (for our play), so I cast quite a few females in parts. If you look at (mental health centers) today, they’re co-ed, so that (casting) all worked out well.” Lenny Bennett and Anna Bennett play the respective lead roles of McMurphy and Ratched, while Lana Westergren plays Chief Bromden (originally a male role). “The person portraying Randle is going to be sensational. I think he’s totally natural for the part,” Wright said. “Besides the lead role, he’s become part of the leadership of the cast. He has a great approach to things and has really stepped up for us.” Wright is also excited about the rest of the 16-member cast. “It’s a definite mix of newcomers and veterans,” he said. “We have three mother-daughter combinations. We already had one combination. We formed another couple when our costumer’s daughter was in the cast, and we brought in the costumer. We later added a third mother-daughter.” The play started with some scheduling issues and was moved to this spring. At first, LCTC shared use of the Dakota Theatre stage and rehearsal nights with the Yankton Children’s Theater Company (YCTC), which was preparing for its production of “Little Women.” “During that month, the children’s theater usually got the stage from 6:308:30, and we took over from 8:30-10:30,” Wright said. “The rehearsals got late for us, but we got our two-hour block of time. When the children’s theater finished in February, we returned to the normal time frame and had the stage to ourselves.” The sharing arrangement paid off handsomely in another way, Wright said. “We were able to use the ‘Little Women’ set. I made some changes to their set, but it was left in place,” he said. “We built a nurse’s station for our play, but we didn’t have to tear down anything. It worked out really well for us.” The YCTC and LCTC productions, while far different in content, shared much of the same set design and staging, Wright said. “Our play was like ‘Little Women’ in the fact that we were both set in just one room,” he said. “We do have one scene where they perform electric shock on a patient, so we superimposed for that scene and pulled it out front. But we had no set changes at all, which was really nice.” With the cast and set falling into place, Wright did face one remaining issue. “The challenge is that we have so much dialogue, and it flips a lot from comedy to drama, so we want to keep the audience with BARKL TAX SERVICE The right job is just one click away. KELLY HERTZ/P&D McMurphy (Lenny Bennett) tries to communicate with the comatose Chief Bromden (Lana Westergren) in a scene from the Lewis & Clark Theatre Company production of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” which will be presented April 4-7 at the Dakota Theatre in Yankton. us,” he said. “We didn’t want to make it too funny, but we also didn’t want it to be totally dramatic, so there was a little bit of a challenge.” The movie walked the tightrope between drama and comedy with success, Wright noted. “Jack Nicholson won the Oscar for his performance in the movie, and he was funny in his role. There was a lot of comedy,” he said. “But we also need to warn the audience: one of the people dies at the end, and there is also profanity in our production. We advise that people use their own discretion on whether they want to see the play and whether to allow younger people to attend.” That said, Wright believes the upcoming production will draw strong attendance. While the cast performs on stage, the audience plays its own important role, he added. “The audience is critically important. The whole purpose of this is to have people come and be entertained,” he said. “The cast feeds off the audience. The more people who come to see us, the better it is. The bigger the crowd, the better we become.” The audience members can anticipate a performance full of fun, excitement and drama, Wright said. “We have fighting and comedy, and the shock therapy scene is really heavy. I chose the music to fit (those scenes),” he said. “The play ends in tragedy, but we pick it up with an upbeat curtain call.” Wright promises one thing: the audience won’t be bored. “They can expect a roller coast of emotions,” he said. “We want to pull them in and invite them to come along for the ride with us.” ——— The following is the cast and crew list: Randle McMurphy: Lenny Bennett Chief Bromden: Lana Westergren Nurse Ratched: Anna Bennett Dale Harding: Lawrence Sweet Follow @RDockendorf on Twitter. Let Our Family Business Keep Yours In The Go With: • Farm Filters • Hydraulic Hoses • Bearings & Seals Cox Auto 1007 Broadway Ave Yankton, SD 605•665•4494 Participating Businesses Are… Chris Barkl CPA, MPA www.missourivalleyshopper.com In Print and Online! Call 665-5884 Individual, Farm, & Business Call for an Appointment Today! 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