 
Orion Pilger shines at Peak to Peak
Accomplishment: Pilger recently finished performing 36 shows at the Colorado Shakespeare Festival in "A Child's Christmas in Wales." He also auditioned for Broadway's "Mary Poppins," but he just missed the final cut for the role. Pilger is also in accelerated classes at Peak to Peak. In June, he will be in another production for Broadway in Boulder, playing Colin in "The Secret Garden."
Q: What did you enjoy most about your role in "A Child's Christmas in Wales?
A: It was a lot like real life. I could be more of myself because the guy was like me. It was also pretty fun because he is on stage a lot.
Q: How did you get the part?
A: I had done it before. I did it all last year, and (the director) liked me enough that he wanted me again for this year.
Q: How did you hear about the auditions for "Mary Poppins"?
A: I have a voice teacher and he was talking about this, and it sounded interesting. I ended up getting moved to the second round. I moved to the third and final round. I would have gotten the part if the director wasn't worried about me growing out of my costume.
Q: What do you enjoy most about acting?
A: It's really fun. Pretending is fun. It's truly fun, and I like entertaining a lot, which is part of the acting stuff.
Q: What are some of your favorite subjects in school?
A: I'd say math, except when it's really hard, and theater. I'd say Spanish too.
Q: If you could change one thing about your school, what would it be?
A: That's a hard question. Probably how it was structured and the color of the buildings.
Q: What do you like to do for fun?
A: I like to play video games and go on the computer. Golfing is also pretty fun.
Q: What is your favorite movie?
A: Every time I watch a movie it changes. It was "Wall-E" and "Hancock." But it changes.
Q: What was the last book you read?
A: "Parallel Journeys" by Eleanor H. Ayer with Helen Waterford and Alfons Heck.
Q: What do you want to be when you grow up?
A: I want to be an actor and probably make computer games for kids.
Be sure to vote for C.S.F. in the 2008 Ovation Awards. Announced Dec.28
Here are your Denver Post 2008 Ovation Award nominations honoring the best in Colorado theater. You can vote in more than 30 designated "reader's choice" categories by simply clicking right here
"The Colorado Shakespeare Festival earned seven nominations, but also claimed an unusual distinction: Five of the 10 nominees for best season by an actor or actress spent the summer in its company. "
Colorado Shakespeare Festival
(In the last box is Orion (me) and Cambria from 2008 'A Child's Christmas in Wales')
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"A Child's Christmas in Wales" Will Delight All Ages
Thursday, Dec 4th, 2008
By Lizzy Scully
Berthoud Recorder
As part of the Colorado Shakespeare Festival’s family holiday tradition, Director Philip Sneed and the Foothills Theatre Company have brought an adaptation of Dylan Thomas’ “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” to the University of Colorado’s University Theatre stage.
"Unfortunately, Shakespeare did not leave us with a Christmas play," Sneed wrote in the editorial for the playbill. So, the company chose to start its new winter programming in 2007 with a "20th century classic."
The original story is a series of vignettes about various holiday season traditions, from wandering the neighborhood singing Christmas carols to exchanging presents, and is told from the perspective of the “Boy,” played by the charming and talented Orion Pilger. The play is somewhat disjointed, reflecting the memory of the Boy, but there is much boyish charm to the haphazard storyline. For example, in a scene recalled by adult narrators, the Boy and his best friend, played by Cambria Pilger, pretend to be hunters as they throw snowballs at cats, but then are quickly whisked into a new adventure when Mrs. Prothero’s dinner catches on fire and the firemen drench her house with water.
Narrator 1: Jim and I, fur-capped and moccasined trappers from Hudson Bay…
Narrator 4: Off Mumbles Road…
Narrator 1: Would hurl our deadly snowballs at the green of their eyes … We were so still, Eskimo-footed arctic marksmen in the muffling silence of the eternal snows…
Narrator 4: Eternal, ever since Wednesday … We never heard Mrs. Prothero’s first cry from her igloo at the bottom of the garden …
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Comments taken out from the Daily Camera reviewer Karen Goodwin 12/5/08 article:
"Still, there are some nice tableaus and magical moments, and the music brings some of the evening's most poignant moments. As the young Dylan, sixth-grader Orion Pilger has real stage presence and captures the heartrending earnestness found in child actors of yesteryear. His younger sister Cambria also possesses an impressive theatrical quality, and in her 1930s garb resembles legendary child actress Margaret O'Brien, whom 1940s film buffs may recall. Unfortunately, their parts are minor -- it would have been nice if they had more to do."
As the winter solstice approaches and the nights grow long, our consciousness naturally turns inward, stirring memories of past holidays. For Dylan Thomas, in his classic narrative poem, "A Child's Christmas in Wales," these remembrances of the season are symbolized by the deep, formless snows of his youth.
Reprising last year's successful venture into yuletide programming, the Colorado Shakespeare Festival restages the adaptation of Thomas' cherished narrative verse originally developed by festival artistic director Philip C. Sneed with his former ensemble at the Foothills Theatre in Nevada City, Calif.
Sneed's cast of six is an impressively flexible lot, switching genders and generations with ease, while forming a delightfully
Stephen Weitz, left, Orion Pilger, center, and Cambria Pilger star in "A Child's Christmas in Wales," based on verse by Dylan Thomas and presented by the Colorado Shake- speare Festival. (Glenn J. Asakawa, University of Colorado )
melodious sextet that enhances the rich language of the poem, evoking dormant recollections of family and friends, hearth and home, by interweaving carols, hymns, lullabies, and a short rendering from Dickens' "A Christmas Carol."
As Thomas writes, "It was snowing. It was always snowing at Christmas. December, in my memory, is white as Lapland . . . I plunge my hands in the snow and bring out whatever I can find."
What he finds is a sparkling collection of vignettes that resonate with our own experiences: throwing snowballs at feral cats, the firetruck arriving to douse a stove-induced blaze, wrestling with his brother in the snow, the postmen bravely trudging through a blizzard and, of course, the presents, each delivered with a bow.
As the stories unfold, the players — the precocious children (Cambria and Orion Pilger) and multitalented adults (Matt Mueller, Karyn Casl, Stephen Weitz, and Rebecca Remaly) — act out Thomas' witty descriptive passages while luxuriating in his rich, inventive language: Three postmen comically tap dance; a dirgelike interpretive movement captures the essence of a dying robin as it is laid to rest by the boy; the uncles, satiated from the endless courses of the Christmas meal, snore in the corner; a red-eyed owl spooks the kids while they sing carols at a desolate house on a starless night.
Most delightful among a slew of beautifully rendered musical numbers (directed by Remaly) — including "Deck the Halls," "Christmas Is Coming," "Good King Wenceslaus" and "All Through the Night" — is the finale, "A Welsh Lullaby" (Suo Gan), which you may recall as the showstopper from the score of Stephen Spielberg's film "Empire of the Sun."
In a world gone mad with rabid shoppers stomping clerks to death in a frenzied rush to find bargains, Thomas' pastoral images, as they are brought to life in this nostalgic, four-dimensional Christmas card, beseech us to rediscover a sense of proportion commensurate with the spiritual events we are supposed to be celebrating.
Bob Bows also reviews theater for Variety, for KUVO/89.3 FM, and for his own website, coloradodrama.com. He can be reached at bbows@coloradodrama.com.
"A Child's Christmas in Wales" ***
Dramatized poem. Presented by the Colorado Shakespeare Festival at the University Theatre. Written by Dylan Thomas. Directed by Philip C. Sneed. Starring Matt Mueller, Karyn Casl. 1 hour, 10 minutes. Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, and Sunday matinees; also Tuesdays, Dec. 22 and 30, and Wednesdays, Dec. 24 and 31. Go to coloradoshakes.org for varying show times. $9-$54. 303-492-0554.
Boulder actors impress Disney casting director
By Mark Collins
Thursday, May 15, 2008
A casting director for Disney came to Boulder in early May and left impressed.
David Ayers and Angela Gaylor, who run Broadway in Boulder, a musical-theater training school housed in Parlando School of the Arts, hosted Jennifer Rudin, head of casting for Disney Theatrical Productions, earlier this month.
Initially, 600 people auditioned for 85 slots. Those 85 got to work with Rudin in a series of workshops in Boulder. During the workshops, Ayers said, Rudin was on the lookout for talent to possibly fill roles in a handful of upcoming Disney stage and screen productions.
"We think people are great out here, but you never know how they're going to show for directors from New York or L.A. who see thousands of actors every year," Ayers said.
By the time Rudin left, she had asked six local children to attend callbacks for the Disney musical "Mary Poppins" in Chicago next month, and is eyeing five other local talentsfor possible spots on other projects in the future, Ayers said.
In Chicago, Disney is looking to cast the roles of Jane and Michael Banks, the two children in "Mary Poppins," for both the national tour and as replacements for the current Broadway production of the musical. The six children invited to callbacks are Lizzy Scholz, of Boulder; Orion Pilger, of Lafayette; Aida Neitenbach, of Louisville; Shawnee Elliott, of Golden; Keely Kritz, of Littleton; and Thomas Walsh, of Vail.
Ayers and Gaylor will hold a "boot camp" for the children heading for Chicago callbacks.
"We're going to have them go over the sides from the shows, go over their British accents and the songs they need to know," Ayers said.
In addition, Rudin tapped other local actors for future callbacks in other Disney projects, Ayers said. They include Robert Johnson, who just played the man-eating plant in "Little Shop of Horrors" at Boulder's Dinner Theatre, up for Mufasa in "The Lion King"; Chris Douglas, of Boulder, up for Simba in "The Lion King"; and Avi Gottlieb, of Boulder, up for future Disney Channel projects. Ayers said Rudin wants to keep an eye on Julia Johanos, of Louisville, and Emily Luhrs, of Boulder, for possible future consideration, as well.
Ayers and Gaylor moved to Boulder in 2006 from New York, where both were Broadway performers, and opened Broadway in Boulder last year. Ayers said plans are already in the works to host more workshops in the future like the one Rudin gave.
"The more things we can do to bring these opportunities to Boulder, the better," Ayers said. "There's a lot of talent out here."
Contact Camera Theater Critic Mark Collins at 303-473-1369 or BDCTheater@comcast.net.
© 2006 Daily Camera and Boulder Publishing, LLC.
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REVIEWS FROM THE CHILD'S CHRISTMAS SHOW:
A Child's Christmas in Wales
Celebrate the season with Dylan Thomas. By Juliet Wittman
Visiting my daughter and her family after Thanksgiving, I discovered that my two-year-old grandson was entranced by the lights outside of people's houses. He kept wanting to drive or walk down the street and gaze; he couldn't figure out why we couldn't just remove the twinkling strings and take them home with us. At a mall coffee shop with an endless loop of Muzak-y carols, I asked the woman behind the counter if the music wasn't driving her crazy. "I wish every day was Christmas," she said. It all made me think about how cynical I sometimes feel about the season, particularly given all the news accounts regarding whether we'll buy enough junk to boost the economy, and the slew of sentimental and/or would-be funny theatrical offerings I usually endure this time of year. The truth is, part of me loves Christmas lights just as much as two-year-old Clarkie does and thrills every year at having a fragrant green tree in the living room.
It snowed the night I went to see A Child's Christmas in Wales, the first serious snow of the season, allaying some of the fears I'd had about incipient drought and making the University of Colorado campus white and beautiful. Inside the theater building, they were selling big round cookies — festive, though a bit too sweet — and various hot drinks and allowing audience members to take them into the auditorium. The stage was set for celebration, and Philip Sneed, the Colorado Shakespeare Festival's new artistic director, has captured some of the true, pure spirit of Christmas with the festival's first winter production.
Dylan Thomas's famous short story is a series of childhood memories. "I plunge my hands in the snow and bring out whatever I can find," he writes. "In goes my hand into that wool-white bell-tongued ball of holidays resting at the rim of the carol-singing sea, and out come Mrs. Prothero and the firemen." This show gives Thomas's gorgeous and amazing words their due, but "A Child's Christmas" is a short piece, and a simple staged reading wouldn't last even the brief 75 minutes that this production does. Sneed and his cast — actors he'd worked with at Foothill Theatre Company in Nevada City, California — created it together, collaboratively and improvisationally, adding movement, mime, songs and words from other sources. Some of these embellishments work well, as when the family passes plates of food around the table in choreographed sequence, moving faster and faster, and then more and more slowly as fatigue and satiation set in. There's also a wonderful moment illustrating Thomas's list of Useless Presents: Orion Pilger, the charming fifth-grader who plays the young Thomas, is swathed by the rest of the cast in sweaters, gloves, scarves, hats and even a nose muff, until he is completely obliterated.
Some other bits — particularly in the second act — feel shoehorned in, or a little too cute. The cast actually sings the songs that Thomas mentions in his last paragraph, but this doesn't add anything, since they sing neither particularly well nor particularly badly, and the songs themselves don't deepen the mood. There's a long reading of the section of A Christmas Carol in which Charles Dickens describes the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come; as it progresses, a ghostly figure skulks in the shadows, and young Thomas leaves the others clustered around the piano to follow it. I can give this sequence meaning — something about fear of the yawning unknown future, a fear that's partially resolved as the child nestles into his bed later, breathing a few words to "the close and holy darkness" — but I have to work to do it.
Ten-year-old Victoria Capraro plays the other child's roles; the adult actors are Karyn Casl, Timothy Orr, Rebecca Remaly and Gary Wright. Except for Orr, all of them tend to be a bit too broad and twinkly. Wright does have a fine voice for the music of Thomas's words, though, and I'm glad Sneed didn't have his cast attempt a Welsh accent. And then, of course, there's Trefoni Michael Rizzi's set, with its warm lighting adding to the glow of this pleasant contribution to the season.
THE DENVER POST:
Review: "A Child's Christmas in Wales"
*** RATING | A paean to memory
By Kurt Brighton
Special to The Denver Post
Article Last Updated: 12/14/2007 12:55:07 AM MST
From left, Gary Wright, Karyn Casl, Orion Pilger, Rebecca Remaly and Victoria Capraro (back to camera) in the CSF's "A Child's Christmas in Wales." ( Casey A. Cass, University of Colorado )
If there were ever any doubt as to what demographic "A Child's Christmas in Wales" was seeking, it became clear just after the house lights dimmed. A boy, no more than 6, was clearly heard to whisper in that not-at-all-quiet way small children have, "Is that real snow, Daddy?"
The endearing, unscripted moment was a perfect lead-in for the show, adapted from a short story by Dylan Thomas, which is all about childhood whimsy, harking back to the wonder with which we once viewed a seemingly limitless world.
In its first-ever full-scale holiday production, the Colorado Shakespeare Festival is bringing that wonderment to the stage with the play, first performed in part on BBC radio in 1945. It is a beloved show, revolving around the poet's memories of a Christmas when he was a boy. But it's perhaps not as well-worn as some other seasonal fare, giving it a freshness despite being over half a century old.
And those for whom the poetry of Dylan Thomas is but a painful memory from English Lit 101 will be pleasantly surprised: The same poet who brought us "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" can be very funny as well. For example, the show's first vignette has young Thomas (Orion Pilger) and his friend Jim (Victoria Capraro) armed to the teeth with snowballs, hunting cats that were "sleek and long as jaguars and horrible-whiskered, spitting and snarling."
It's the playful genius of Thomas' language that truly stars in "Child's Christmas." And the actors and director are secure enough to allow the words to take care of themselves without a lot of unnecessary elaboration. To read Thomas on the page is one thing; to hear aloud his mad cadences and tongue-tripping joy at the sounds words make when placed near one another is astounding.
The story isn't so much a story as it is a series of snapshots. It was a year when Thomas was 6 and it snowed for 12 days and 12 nights, or he was 12, and it snowed for six days and six nights. But really it's about every Christmas, and the way they blend together in one's memory.
Like Christmases past, the ensemble cast also blends together, drifting seamlessly from role to role as the show progresses under the direction of Philip C. Sneed, producing artistic director for CSF. The cast members weave the tapestry of Thomas' childhood Swansea, variously portraying the random uncles that come out of the woodwork every year for Christmas dinner, the queasy family dog, the kooky aunts gathered around the piano singing old songs and, of course, Thomas himself, as an adult and as a child.
In one touching scene, Thomas, played for the moment by Gary Wright, silently gives his scarf to a poor boy who is huddled around a trash-can fire before heading back to his cozy house.
For the most part the cast flits through these various guises smoothly, presenting discrete, believable characters in a few short lines, most notably in Timothy Orr, Rebecca Remaly and Karyn Casl. But it is a true ensemble cast in that each actor knows when to step forward, and when to allow others the spotlight. Without smart, sensitive actors such as these, the show could easily be swallowed up by one misguided ego.
And while it is a play about childhood and for children — weighing in at a lean hour and 22 minutes doesn't hurt — in a way, "Child's Christmas" is aimed more subtly at adults, at our occluded view through the lens of nostalgia. As Thomas tells a young boy, today's snow is nothing like it was back then, when it was "shaken from white wash buckets down the sky, it came shawling out of the ground and swam and drifted like a dumb, numb thunderstorm of white."
Kids these days — they don't know how good they've got it.
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