Oompa, Loompa, Doom-Pa-Dee-Do

This weekend we made a quick visit to North Carolina to visit Ken's family. Our first stop was in Charlotte to visit his mother, who treated us to a wonderful lunch at her apartment. Then we were off to Greensboro to attend a performance of Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory by the Community Theater of Greensboro.  The theater partnered with Guilford County Schools for this production, which included more than 100 cast members, all of whom were students, staff members, or parents from the schools.
Based on a children's book by Roald Dahl, the musical tells the tale of a poor boy who gets a golden ticket to tour a legendary candymaker's factory, where sinister sweets tempt the children.  Emma, our great niece who turned seven in May, was an Oompa Loompa (candy factory worker) and a villager. (She is on the bottom left in this photo.) Her father, Bryan, who has lots of community theater experience, starred as Willie Wonka.  After six weeks of rehearsals, the cast performed the production about a dozen times over two long weekends.  We caught the show at the Saturday matinee, and they had two more performances to go.
We were quite impressed with the production, marveling at the flawless coordination of more than 60 children with costume changes.  The five children who played the golden ticket winners amazed us with their poise and stage presence, and we loved the assistant principal as TV reporter.  It was a fun event, and, along with the rest of the audience, we were quite entertained for two hours.  Even the dozens of children in the audience were held spellbound (and quiet!) by this excellent performance.