Press Releases

Winfield, Kan., June 18, 2002 - When the Southwestern College Horsefeathers and Applesauce Summer Dinner Theatre company blew into Kansas for "The Wizard of Oz," they had no idea they had so much in common. The 40-member company is made up of an unusual number of educators, some into theatre full-time, others supplementing their own education with a discipline they believe enhances their teaching skills.

"The Wizard of Oz" will be presented in Messenger Recital Hall Thursday through Sunday, June 20-23, and Thursday through Sunday, June 27-30. Dinner is served at 6:30 p.m.; show time is 8 p.m.

"When you teach children to read, you want them to see the pictures in their minds," says Cindy Harden, a member of the costuming and make-up crew for "The Wizard of Oz." "Often, theatre is a way to inspire those pictures. When students can be in the story - when they can present it to others - they begin to feel it."

Harden, who is a first-timer with the H & A company, will be combining her theatre experience with a degree in English to teach English and American literature in Eastern Europe for the next two years with the Peace Corps.

Kristi TenClay, a history teacher and master electrician for "The Wizard of Oz," agrees.

"History sometimes turns kids off because they think it's boring. It wasn' t until I was in college that I fell in love with history because I learned about peoples' lives - not just names and dates. You can take theatre into the classroom to bring history alive," TenClay says.

And that is what the H & A company is doing with "The Wizard of Oz." They' re taking the set - the Dirty Thirties of American history - and making it a lesson on the period. Even Dorothy's dream-like experience in the land of Oz is made up of the elements she would have known from her life in rural Kansas: Munchkins in patchwork quilts, jitterbugs in traveling circus costumes. Careful research into life on the prairie during that infamous time in American history has brought a familiar and much-loved show to life on the Messenger stage.

Harden and TenClay believe Horsefeathers and Applesauce allows this great combination of professional theatre and educational theatre.

"In professional theatre, you are mainly concerned with the performance," says TenClay. "In educational theatre you're trying to say something by the experience. It's a process of creating and learning." Horsefeathers combines the two, she says.

TenClay, in her third season with H & A, is originally from Green Bay, Wisc. She will begin a new job in the fall teaching American history in Junction City.

Other educators or future educators in the company include Ryan Kathman, Hollie Becker, Jennifer Favre, Jessica Callison, Tobie Henline, Elisabeth Anne VanDerWerf, Q. Smith, Carman Costello, Chris Thatcher, Denise Warring, Sasha Hildebrand, Jule Ann Troutman, Cynthia Compton, Susan Camp, and Roger and Allyson Moon.

For tickets to "The Wizard of Oz," call the H & A box office at (620) 221-7720. Dinner theatre tickets are $24 for adults and $16 for youth 12 and under. Show only tickets are $12 for adults and $5 for youth.