Theatre Cedar Rapids returning to main stage with ‘Cinderella’ magic

CEDAR RAPIDS — The magic of “Cinderella” is bringing local actors, the creative team and masked audiences back to the Theatre Cedar Rapids main stage from Nov. 19 to Dec. 19, with something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue.

Three generations of women waving their wands over the production grew up with three very different versions of the rags-to-riches tale.

Costume designer Joni Sackett, 65, of Cedar Rapids, remembers seeing the 1950 Disney animated version, but the one she said is closest to her heart is the 1965 Rodgers & Hammerstein television production, starring Lesley Ann Warren. Naturally, the visuals have stuck with her.

“I remember her beautiful ball dress because it was that empire waist with a little ermine, and she was so delicate, as well,” Sackett said. “And the stepmother and the stepsisters were just goofy (wearing) those big, sort of medieval horned things. And the flatness of the sets — that ’60s, flat, sort of unreal thing. That was great, too. Cheaper, I'm sure.”

“Cinderella”

Where: Theatre Cedar Rapids, 102 Third St. SE, Cedar Rapids

When: Nov. 19 to Dec. 19, 2021; 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Friday, Saturday, 2:30 p.m. Sunday and Dec. 11 Saturday matinee

Tickets: $27 to $51, TCR Box Office, (319) 366-8591 or Cinderella link at theatrecr.org.

Extras: All audience members must wear masks; light-up items will be sold for audience participation with the Fairy Godmother

Director Angie Toomsen, 48, of Cedar Rapids, too young to have seen the live version on TV, grew up with the Disney animated bibbidi-bobbidi-boo “Cinderella.” Again, it was the dress that captured her imagination.

“I used to draw her, too,” Toomsen said. “The classic blue dress — all of it. I would just draw her over and over and over again — and I loved her.”

TCR’s Ella/Cinderella, Maddie Kadlec, 22, of Iowa City, embraced the 1997 film starring Brandy and Whitney Houston. Now a music teacher at Shimek and Lincoln elementary schools in Iowa City, it’s the singing she remembers from the show.

“I just loved it, growing up,” Kadlec said. “I just thought she had the most beautiful voice ever, and I was pulling for her so hard the whole time. She was just such a sweet and kind of awkward and relatable Cinderella, which I loved.”

None of the three women are consciously bringing images from these versions to their work. But they are striving to capture the spirit and the magic that swirls around the young girl forced into drudgery at home, who finds her happily ever after with a handsome prince.

Designing dreams

“What I initially said to our team in the beginning was that I wanted this to feel like a very, very intentional, visually cohesive box of beautiful toys that come to life,” Toomsen said, “and I've loved seeing the ways our designers interpret that.

“Joni's costumes are just — one after the other — breathtaking. They give me that kind of heart glow every time I see them. They send me straight back into 6-year-old Angie putting sparkly dresses on her Barbies.”

She added that scenic and lighting designer S. Benjamin Farrar’s “concept is like an illustrated storybook at grand scale.”

Sackett has been having fun with Farrar’s color palette and timeless design, she said “doesn’t translate well“ to the “faux medieval” look of the Lesley Ann Warren version. So she’s using “a kind of smudgy time period that is fairy-tale” for the costumes.

She has about 20 volunteers sewing, and said, “The range of patterns that I've been sending people away with has been everything from sort of medieval through Renaissance through Revolutionary War.”

She’s renting the peasant costumes, and focusing more on the ballgown and formal wear.

“I have never asked my volunteers, probably, to do so much. (There’s) so much sewing for this show because we're building so much of it and it's all just kind of from scratch, so lots and lots of people are helping out in that area,” she said.

“The dresses are super pretty, and the men are super pretty. They're all super pretty. … We even have someone in puffy pants.” That would be James Odegaard as Lord Pinkleton, one of the bad guy’s henchmen, “and he looks great,” Sackett said.

She’s using lots of pastels in the ballgown, which she said “looks like a ’60s rainbow bridesmaid thing.” The stepmother and stepsisters will be in pink, to clash with the blue/green hues in the scenery. While Ella’s dress won’t be the transformational piece that’s been used in recent years, Toomsen and Sackett promise audiences will be dazzled by what they see.

The ball also will have a special lighting touch. Jim Kern, former staff member, director and actor at Theatre Cedar Rapids, donated the chandelier he made for his Sept. 25 wedding reception. He and his dog, Rudy, recently transported the opulent piece, valued at $600, from Saugatuck, Mich., to Cedar Rapids.

“I just cried after he left,” said Toomsen, who had seen it in its glory inside the reception’s outdoor dinner tent. “What a special person who has given so much love to this community — and this chandelier is symbolic of the beauty he creates and supports.”

Broadway version

TCR is staging the version that gave the beloved story its Broadway debut in 2013, adding some new music, characters and plot twists to the familiar Rodgers & Hammerstein score. Toomsen is quick to point out that audiences still will see and hear the elements they expect, from the slipper to the ball, the wistful “In My Own Little Corner” to the romantic “Ten Minutes Ago.”

One of the new songs, however, is Kadlec’s favorite to perform.

“I love the classics,” she said, “but … Prince Topher (Brandon Burkhart) has a song called ‘The Loneliness of Evening,’ and I have just a little descant over it. I just think it is the most beautiful thing — the most fun to sing,” she said.

“It’s gorgeous,” Toomsen added. “I think it's a good mix of songs people are going to recognize and love, and songs you've never heard before. … Maddie also has a beautiful voice — perfect for a Rodgers & Hammerstein show.”

It’s not Kadlec’s first turn with “Cinderella” onstage. In high school, she played a mouse. However, this version has no mice — and it’s also been a while since she’s stepped into the spotlight.

“I grew up doing a lot of theater in the Twin Cities,” she said. “I took a bit of a break but got back into it toward the end of college. I did a few shows with my college theater and then I haven't done anything since. This is by far — by a lot — my biggest role ever.”

Ella enchanted

It took a little coaxing from fiancee Meghan Reinschmidt to take the plunge. The couple moved from Minneapolis to Iowa City so Reinschmidt could attend graduate school at the University of Iowa.

As newcomers, Kadlec hadn’t even heard of Theatre Cedar Rapids, but saw an online post about auditions, and was intrigued.

“I love fairy tales and have been looking to get back into theater,” she said. "Originally I was nervous to audition, but Meghan talked me into it and said, ‘You might as well just throw your tape in there.’ So I auditioned and then was subsequently shocked as I got called back and got the part — and it's been amazing.“

And she won’t be alone in her own little corner. Reinschmidt is playing trumpet in the pit orchestra for the production.

Toomsen is thrilled to have them both onboard.

“First of all, I have to say that I feel so blessed that Maddie and Megan moved here,” Toomsen said. “I obviously didn't know her, and through the audition process, I assumed she was maybe a talented University of Iowa theater/vocal student, and then found out later that (she) had just moved to the area.

“What our team saw among the many lovely people that were called back for the role was a genuine quality, a sweetness, a real radiant kindness,” Toomsen said, adding that when Kadlec was reading for the stepsisters, “I also saw her range, as someone who can be that leading lady, but also quirky and funny and a little bit off the wall.”

Lasting impressions

Kadlec is having a ball, even with the challenges of moving back into the theatrical realm.

“I'm learning a ton every single day,” she said. “I've been trying to kind of get ahead of it and put in the work on the front end. I’ve found myself really trying to figure out how to embody this person.

“I think acting has been what I've been focusing on the most, and I found myself diving in headfirst. There have been some days where I just feel it so deeply and I just feel like I am her, and it maybe takes me a day or two to get out of it.

"It's been really powerful and a really cool experience to feel this connected with a character. And I think partially because of not having a ton of acting experience, I maybe don't know how to completely disconnect yet. So it's just a lot of Cinderella. I’ve waltzed with my cat plenty,“ she said with a laugh.

Digging in so deeply has also yielded some surprises.

“When we have a scene with the stepmother, I just feel that really deep inside me,” she said. “I feel her pain more than I expected to.”

As a teacher, Kadlec also wants young people in the audience to see hope and joy emanating from Ella.

“Ella is in a situation where she is put down by the world, but she gets the help that she needs through her community, through her people, and she makes her own dreams come true. She never loses her hopefulness,” Kadlec said. “Even when horrible things happen, she is able to make it through. She also is able to carry joy with her all the time and celebrate that joy.”

Toomsen would like kids to see “that compassion and kindness are a strength, and forgiveness is empowering. We can become our truest and most aspirational vision for ourselves when that vision is truthful.”

Comments: (319) 368-8508; diana.nollen@thegazette.com