If you closed your eyes, the music could have wafted down out of the hollows of Kentucky.
Bursts of fiddle and penny whistle were augmented by tight harmonies of children singing. The tempo went from slow and mournful to rollicking and foot-stomping.
When the music stopped, student actors embodied the spirit of the Appalachian Mountains in short plays displaying the region’s folk tales.
“A lot of these Appalachian tales put a twist on the fairy tales we know today,” said Kimra Duncan, a student director of one of the plays. “These are stories based around love and family, being together and singing together.”
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A talented group of local youths is bringing the stories, music and artistry of Appalachia to a Johnson County stage. “Sing Down the Moon: Appalachian Wonder Tales” opens tonight at Madonna Hall in Our Lady of the Greenwood Church.
The performance blends well known fairy tales such as “Jack and the Beanstalk” and “Cinderella” with more traditional stories from the Appalachian Mountains.
By spotlighting the art of one of America’s most unique cultural regions, “Sing Down the Moon” keeps audiences hanging on with a mix of familiar and fresh.
“It’s very swingy and dancey. There’s an air of fun about it — the whole thing is about having fun,” said Carlynn Berners, the show’s fiddle player.
The show is the second put on by the Agape Performing Arts Company, a ministry of Our Lady of the Greenwood. The theater program was founded by Kathy Phipps, a longtime theater advocate on the southside and in the Center Grove area, to provide young people an opportunity to perform.
Kids can act, sing, play music and learn the technical details of live theater through the program. They get a chance to direct the shows, and have major input into the entire production process.
“Agape” is a Latin term for unconditional, sacrificial love, and that speaks to the foundation of the theater program’s mission. The goal is to create a community where all performers are valued because they are children of God, and to help performers grow in confidence and character, Phipps said.
Agape had its first show in June, a playful version of the musical “Into the Woods Jr.” With “Sing Down the Moon,” Phipps wanted to take their production in a more unique direction.
“I’ve always been interested in Appalachian music. My father made me a dulcimer when I was in my 20s, so I’ve loved that kind of music,” she said. “I found the show and just fell in love with it, and thought it would be a great show to do here because it’s an intimate space.”
The play features six separate stories, four of which are traditional fairy tales told with an Appalachian flair. People will recognize the plots of the “Three Little Pigs” and “Beauty and the Beast,” even as the music and setting is stylized to fit the rural theme.
The other two are Appalachian folktales.
“Each of the stories deals with the main character going on some kind of a journey,” Phipps said. “
To emphasize that journey concept, play organizers will use “alley staging” throughout the play. A runway will extend out from the main stage, with a smaller stage off to the side. All of the seats will be facing the alley, Phipps said.
“The audience will be looking back and forth between the locations, with some of the action happening on the alley and the rest on the stages,” she said. “We’re having so much fun with that approach, because you almost never get to use it.”
The show has a cast of 30 kids who perform, plus another 12 student directors.
Duncan, an 18-year-old Indianapolis resident, had taken theater classes with Phipps and acted in some of her previous plays.
All of her work to this point had been done on stage, so when Phipps offered the chance to direct a show, she jumped at it.
“She offered me one of the stories to do, to figure out what directing was about. It’s definitely been an interesting difference,” Duncan said. “I’ve always liked being in charge and organizing things, so I like directing in that way.”
Audiences will recognize the stories being told, but the rural notes woven in by the actors gives the show a different feel.
“There’s kind of a farm theme, and I’ve always liked that,” Duncan said. “It reminds me of what I imagine it being like back in the Appalachian times. I love singing, I love the fiddles in the background, it’s just amazing.”
But what sets the show apart is its unique mix of music. Only three of the stories have music in them, but an opening number and finale also let young musicians shine.
Phipps recruited talented local musicians to provide a more authentic Appalachian feel to the dramatic aspects of the show.
“The music is just beautiful. There’s tight harmony in the opening and the finale, and the ‘Three Little Pigs’ has some great old-time harmony in it,” Phipps said. “The rest of the music has ballads in a sad, mournful sound.”
Berners is a 13-year-old Center Grove-area resident who handles the fiddle. She was brought up playing classical violin, but recently took up fiddling.
Learning it required her to take an entirely new approach to the instrument she’d known most of her life.
“Fiddling in general is just an entirely different style of music. It has different roots, and so there are a lot of decorations and all kinds of funky things that to on,” she said. “It’s not quite as structured as classical is.”
Throughout “Sing Down the Moon,” Berners offers musical flourishes in between the individual plays. She also accompanies main songs in the performance itself.
In one of the stories, she gets a starring role as a magic fiddle that plays all by itself.
“I’m sort of impersonating this floating fiddle,” she said. “I just kind of jump out from the shadows and start playing a reel, and it’s a bit challenging because I have to run backwards while I’m playing while staying in character.”
“Sing Down the Moon” will run for three nights, today through Saturday. The cast and crew have been rehearsing twice each week, and as the performance has come together, Phipps has been pleased to see the students not just dive into their roles, but to embrace the Appalachian culture that they’re celebrating.
“It’s been so much fun seeing everything come together from an acting and a musical and a visual point of view,” she said. “It’s been very gratifying seeing all of the different elements come together in a unifying production.”
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“Sing Down the Moon: Appalachian Wonder Tales”
When: 7:30 p.m. today, Friday and Saturday
Where: Madonna Hall, Our Lady of the Greenwood Church, 335 S. Meridian St.
Who: Agape Performing Arts Company, a ministry of Our Lady of the Greenwood
Tickets: $5 for adults, $3 for children 11 and under, $10 for VIP passes. General admission seating begins 30 minutes prior to the performance.
Where to get them: thelittleboxoffice.com/agape
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