A magical wish comes true
Seven-year-old playwright and actress Gracie shined as she starred in her story, “Queen Cinderella and the Rainbow Magic.” The 15-minute play was performed before a packed audience in Wake Forest’s Ring Theatre on Saturday, Nov. 9.
When Make-A-Wish reached out to area theater companies for help in granting the little girl’s wish to write and perform in her own play, Wake Forest theatre students and faculty jumped in to help fulfill Gracie’s dream.
“We proposed to help Gracie create an original play involving our students and faculty and using what resources we had available to give it the best production quality possible,” said theatre professor Jonathan Herbert.
Gracie shared her ideas for the play and three student scriptwriters, sophomore Nola Adepoju, and juniors Alyssa Cheng and Taylor Nisbet each drafted a script from Gracie’s imagination.
“Every idea Gracie shared was written down, and everything Gracie suggested went into the performance,” said Herbert.
The story that resulted from their combined efforts begins when Cinderella and Prince Charming have been crowned king and queen and are enjoying their lives with their three daughters. But their happy-ever-after is interrupted by their power-hungry goat, Rainbow Sparkles, who steals some of Cinderella’s rainbow magic and uses it to wreak havoc on the land.
“We each wrote our own version of the play and synthesized the three into one,” said Adepoju, who shared that her favorite part of the performance occurred at the end of the play when the entire cast acted out a choreographed food fight with squishy fruits, vegetables and baguettes.
More than 50 faculty members and theatre students volunteered to bring “Queen Cinderella and the Rainbow Magic” to life.
Senior Joe Bruno, who played King Charming to Gracie’s Queen Cinderella, said the best part of the experience was watching Gracie open up during rehearsals. “I was worried we might be asking too much of her, but after a couple of hours she started blossoming and really enjoying herself.”
While Gracie was entertaining the audience in the Ring Theatre – rushing to pick up her “babies” from their carriage, delivering witty lines, playing hostess by serving food to her subjects and twirling around the stage – volunteers were also working at her home. Theatre students and staff from Reynolds High School, Make-A-Wish volunteers and Gracie’s hometown transformed the family garage into a “stage fit for a Queen,” said Triad Wish Specialist Lissette Cox.
“Grace’s wish could not have been possible without the outpouring of love from the Winston-Salem community,” said Cox.
See Gracie, her magic wand, rainbow vegetables and the food fight in the “Queen Cinderella and the Rainbow Magic” photo story below.
