Indy Chronicler

“Good lady Winnie Foster, day by day / Is in mattress at seven,” sings Pasquerilla East Musical Firm’s (PEMCo) main actress Serena Melonio.

Sure, precocious 11-year-old Winnie Foster is well-behaved. She is the type of little lady who says please and thanks and ma’am. However the yr is 1893 and the place is Treegap, New Hampshire, a small and remoted city nestled within the harmful woods of the Adirondack Mountains. So she stays trapped throughout the confines of her household residence to appease her grieving (and generally overbearing) mom and grandmother.

However what occurs when good lady Winnie Foster desires to “elevate / a bit of one thing greater than heaven?” What occurs when she runs away from residence? 

That is how we set the scene for PEMCo’s manufacturing of “Tuck Eternal,” a musical adaptation of Natalie Babbitt’s beloved kids’s novel of the identical identify. When you’ve by no means learn the ebook, simply know the woods maintain a mysterious secret: an immortal household known as the Tucks and the magical spring that gave them everlasting life. Oh, and there’s additionally a person in a yellow swimsuit who’s doing the whole lot in his energy to bottle that very spring and promote it for cash. Caught up but? 

I’ll cease myself from going into element to keep away from spoiling the rest, however let’s discuss how a lot of a deal with the viewers is in for, yeah? 

Melonio is completely forged as Winnie Foster. Her small body and perpetual blush might make her cross as a lady half her age, however her voice nonetheless holds the power of a lady well-trained in music. Melonio performs Winnie very similar to Amybeth McNulty in “Anne with an E” — with an earnestness and keenness seemingly inherent in plucky late Nineteenth-century childhood heroines. 

Melonio’s age additionally makes the age distinction between Winnie and the Tuck’s 17-year-old son Jesse (Harry Larson) much less uncomfortable. Jesse, nevertheless, is rarely a threatening presence. He’s precisely the kind of younger man a bit of lady imagines herself falling in love with: protecting but adventurous, radically sincere but sort.

The true love story in “Tuck Eternal” is between the Tuck dad and mom Angus (Mark Hieatt) and Mae (Camila Holden). ‘Til demise do us half really means perpetually while you’re immortal. The Tucks handle to maintain falling in love a thousand occasions over and nonetheless have a joyousness of their marriage that I’ve seen absent between newlyweds. 

The surprisingly emotional core of the musical, although, lies in Christian Dunne’s efficiency of “Time” as older brother Miles Tuck. From the second Miles is launched, the viewers will get a way his maturity comes from borderline exhaustion, however we by no means totally discover his baggage till this track. In “Time,” you by no means get the sense that Dunne is performing. He turns into Miles with all his grief and emotional restraint, and along with his highly effective voice the devastating lyrics are delivered like a sucker punch. “Time” is the primary track that really grapples with the themes of mortality, rising up and alter that outline “Tuck Eternal,” and it’s carried out tremendously. 

Different performances to notice are the dancers and choreographers who fantastically interpret Winnie’s life in “The Story of Winnie Foster” and comedic buddy-cop duo Bryce Bustamante as Constable Joe and Robert Fuller as aspiring detective Hugo.

“Tuck Eternal” is actually a deal with. 

As a senior approaching her remaining semester of school, it’s practically time for me to start uttering the primary in a really lengthy sequence of goodbyes. There have been so many valuable moments over the previous three and a half years the place I needed I might “keep like this perpetually.” However as a lot as I want the fountain of youth from “Tuck Eternal” was actual, this PEMCo manufacturing jogged my memory that having on a regular basis on the planet means completely nothing if it isn’t spent with the folks you’re keen on.

You may watch PEMCo’s manufacturing of “Tuck Eternal” on the Washington Corridor Mainstage on Friday and Saturday at 7 p.m. Tickets are on sale on the LaFourtune Field Workplace for college students at $7 and for the general public at $10.

Tags: Musical, olivia seymour, Pasquerilla East Musical Company, PEMCo, tuck everlasting