Stage Brigade Booster Club

                          The Atomic Adventures of Nikolai Nikolaevich 

News Coverage

• A radioactive dark comedy

  Wednesday, 24 January 2007

  By Greg Hunt Isanti County News Russian food inspectors Brianna Satterlee, Kelsey Larson and Alicia Kase get a taste of Tricia Miller's storytelling abilities in the Cambridge-Isanti One-Act play. A spooky tale which looks back at the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown with at times a dark comedic telling is what the Cambridge-Isanti One-Act Play team brings to life this season. The Bluejackets will offer an open-to-the-public “Parents Night Performance” 7 p.m., Thursday, Jan. 25 at the Hardy Performing Arts Center at CIHS before heading to their subsection competition this weekend.  Junior Tricia Miller stars as the storytelling grandmother, Babushka, in C. Denby Swanson’s “The Atomic Adventures of Nikolai Nikolaevich.” A clever makeup job complements Miller’s acting abilities as the ancient Russian peasant intent on selling her suspect mushrooms in a Moscow market. “In 1986, Chernobyl burned. The river burned. The sky burned. Have you ever seen the sky burn? I have,” Miller’s Babushka relays to the audience. Junior Thomas Opatz plays the title character, Nikolai, a young man who was still in the womb when his mother and grandmother fled Chernobyl. Radiation has caused a peculiar relationship to form with his four brothers, to say the least. The Bluejackets hosted the Mississippi 8 Conference One-Act Festival Jan. 20, receiving one of two starred performances along with Buffalo among the six troupes in attendance. Named M-8 All-Conference by the directors were Miller, Opatz and student director senior Rae Lynn Satterlee. Selected for M-8 Honorable Mention were senior A.J. Lamb (one of the brothers) and junior Erin Shogren (a mushroom buyer who caught Nikolai’s eye). “The judges liked the whole look of the show, the details of the set and costumes,” said CIHS director Fran McGivern. “As far as what I saw, the ensemble work between the brothers and inspectors was very good. And, of course, Tricia Miller has really taken over the role as Babushka. We will need to tighten up some areas before this weekend since the other schools in the subsection are historically strong in drama.” One-Act competitive season McGivern’s Bluejackets will travel to Hermantown for the 7AA North Subsection One-Act meet this Saturday,  Jan. 27. The top two troupes will then advance to the Section 7AA meet on Feb. 3 at Duluth Central, with the winner moving on to the Class AA Festival Feb. 9 at The O’Shaunessy on the College of St. Catherine campus in St. Paul. 2007 C-I One-Act troupe The play: The Atomic Adventures of Nikolai Nikolaevich, by C. Denby Swanson The Cast: Tricia Miller (Babushka); Thomas Opatz (Nikolai Nikolaevich); Joe Palmer, Grant Volker, A.J. Lamb, James Larson (Nikolai’s Brothers); Brianna Satterlee, Alicia Kase, Kelsey Larson (Inspectors); Erin Shogren (Anya); Whitney Sharpe, Dana Murray, Cory LaNasa, Kim Cajune (Market Women). The Crew: Fran McGivern (Director); Rae Lynn Satterlee (Student Director); Dillon Cariveau (Sound); Melissa Johnson (Lights); Nick McVenes (Spotlight).

  

• Jan 20, 2007           The CIHS One Act Drama Team will present a free Community Performance of this year’s production, The Atomic Adventures of Nikolai Nikolaevich, in the Richard G. Hardy Performing Art Center at the High School at 7:00PM on January 25. After the performance there will be a reception for the cast and crew featuring ‘authentic’ Russian foods.

  In this modern Russian fairy tale, a young man must decide whether or not to sell his wild forest mushrooms to a beautiful young woman in the Moscow marketplace. Only five things stand in the way: One, his mushrooms are radioactive. Two, three, four, and five are his twin brothers, who were born on the fingers of his right hand, a result of the accident at Chernobyl. And then there are the market's inspectors, who are hot on his trail and closing in fast... This play was commissioned by the Guthrie Theater, in association with The Children's Theatre Company in 2003.

   
• Feb 3, 2007
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