December at the Theatre of Western Springs Belongs to the Kids

The adult subscription season at the Theatre of Western Springs left the Mainstage on November 1, when Working closed. It returns January 21 with Hound of the Baskervilles. In between, the main house holds one evening concert. Everything else on that stage this winter belongs to performers in kindergarten through 12th grade.

That production is Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella, running December 4 through 13 on the Lou & Nancy Schauer Mainstage. The rules behind the cast list matter as much as the show. The Children's Theatre of Western Springs asks for more than an audition. It asks for a semester of classes, a stint on crew after a run of roles, and a parent on a crew assignment. A December musical at the Theatre of Western Springs is a production by whole families, and the calendar is built around that.

What's on the Mainstage From November to January

The theater is in its 98th season. It has been staging shows in the western suburbs since 1929, and it's already looking ahead to its 100th anniversary in 2029. Here is how the stretch from fall into midwinter lines up across both of its stages.

Look down the Mainstage rows. After Working, the only adult event on that stage before late January is a single concert night. The fall's other activity happened in the smaller Cattell Theatre. The high schoolers' Macbeth played there the first weekend of November. The 3rd-to-8th-grade fairy-tale comedy What Happened After Once Upon a Time followed the next weekend. On November 15, the Cattell Series opened its 98th season with a conversation with Gene Weygandt.

Radio Gaga is this Saturday, November 21, at 7:30 p.m. on the Mainstage. Tickets are $50, and the price goes up $5 per ticket on the day of the show. It's a one-night Performance Series event and isn't part of the six-play subscription. Two weeks later, the main house belongs to Cinderella.

The Cast List Starts in a Classroom

The Children's Theatre doesn't hold open auditions. Students must be enrolled in a CTWS class that semester to take part in a production. They can be cast without any earlier CTWS experience, but enrollment is required. The Cinderella on stage in December comes straight out of the fall class roster.

Casting weighs more than the audition. CTWS lists the factors: the audition, who best suits the role, faculty feedback, previous experience, behavior, how a student interacts with others, volunteer history, and class attendance. Attendance keeps counting after the cast list goes up. A student who stops attending class during a production may affect their future casting eligibility, and in extreme cases the role can be recast. Classes aren't refunded after an audition.

Casts usually run 40 to 60 students, and casting isn't guaranteed. Students who aren't cast are assigned to crew. A K–12 Mainstage musical therefore has two ways in for a student. One is a role on stage. The other is a job backstage on the same show.

Why the Crew List Includes Parents

Three CTWS policies tie the backstage work to the performers' families and to the students themselves:

1. One parent per Mainstage musical cast member. When a student is cast in the Mainstage Musical, one parent is assigned to a crew area. CTWS lists set construction, costumes and concessions among those areas, with staff support for each crew.
2. Crew after three roles in a row. A student who plays three onstage roles in a row has to serve on a crew the next semester. Summer camps don't count toward that rule.
3. Crew for students who aren't cast. Students who don't land a role still work on the production.

On its classes page, CTWS calls volunteering "a vital part of the culture and community" and wants students to learn backstage roles along with performing. Add those three rules together and Cinderella brings in far more people than its cast of 40 to 60. The set, the costumes and the concession stand are handled in part by the families of the students on stage. The lobby on a December Saturday is full of people with a job in the show.

Eight Performances, General Admission

Cinderella runs on a different schedule from the subscription season. The adult plays each get 10 performances over two weekends, with 7:30 p.m. curtains Thursday through Saturday and 2 p.m. matinees on Saturday and Sunday. Cinderella has eight performances, with daytime curtains built for younger audiences:

• Friday, December 4: 7 p.m.
• Saturday, December 5: 11 a.m. and 2:30 p.m.
• Sunday, December 6: 2:30 p.m.
• Friday, December 11: 7 p.m.
• Saturday, December 12: 11 a.m. and 2:30 p.m.
• Sunday, December 13: 2:30 p.m.

Seating is general admission. Tickets are $17 for adults and $13 for children 18 and under. Paying by credit card adds a $3 convenience fee per ticket. Cash and check carry no fee. E-tickets are free, and printed tickets mailed to you cost $3 per order. Sales are final, with no refunds. With general admission and no refunds, choose the date before you buy and plan to arrive early.

The theater also offers a sensory-friendly performance of Cinderella Youth Edition. Details are posted on the theater's website or available from the box office at [email protected]. Ask the box office for the sensory-friendly date when you book.

December 5 Fills Up Downtown

The first Saturday of the run is the busiest day on the village calendar. Cinderella has curtains at 11 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. on December 5. The Village of Western Springs calendar also lists Winter Wonderland that day. That's the Western Springs Business Association's holiday event on the Tower Green. The association has posted Santa photo sign-ups for December 5 and 6, plus November 28 and 29.

Some families will have a student in the cast, a parent on a crew assignment, and younger kids hoping to see Santa, all on the same day. Get the curtain time and the Santa photo slot settled first. Sign-ups are already open, and both events fill the same afternoon. The following Saturday is busy too. Cinderella plays at 11 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. on December 12. The Village's Breakfast with Buddy the Elf runs that morning from 10 to 11:30 at the Recreation Center. Registration is required, and resident pricing is $30 for a parent and first child plus $8 for each additional child.

When the Adults Return in January

The subscription season returns January 21 with Hound of the Baskervilles, Jon Jory's adaptation, directed by Jay Fontanetta. It runs through January 31. Next comes Sean Grennan's Making God Laugh in the Cattell Theatre, February 11–21, directed by Edward W. Wavak. The season ends on the Mainstage with The Girl on the Train, May 27 through June 6, directed by Artistic Director Greg Kolack.

The children's calendar keeps the same pattern into spring. The high schoolers move back to the Cattell Theatre for Neil Simon's Rumors, March 12–14. Grades 3 through 8 follow with Stories Under the Big Top, March 19–21. Then the K–12 company returns to the Mainstage with Disney's The Lion King, April 16–25. The full-family musical gets the main house twice a year, and the spring production is about 10 days long like the December one. Nick Corpora Brandt directs the Children's Theatre, and Marisa Macella is the theater's Executive Director.

You can also put your name on the building itself. Through the theater's Choose-a-Chair campaign, a donation of at least $250 helps pay to buy and install new theater seats. The sponsorship lasts for the life of the chair. It doesn't come with a seat assignment or a performance ticket.

At Deidre Rudich, we keep track of the dates that shape a Western Springs December, from the Cinderella matinees to the Tower Green on December 5. If you're planning the season, or planning a move that has to work around a kid's rehearsal schedule, schedule your complimentary market consultation and we'll build it around the calendar you already have.