Elementary students and community members flock to see The Gingerbread Pirate

Providing a fresh, funny story that sparkled with all the excitement of a pirate adventure and all the magic of Christmas morning, The Gingerbread Pirate was performed Wednesday through Saturday inside Cowley College’s Robert Brown Theatre.

A total of 1,130 elementary students and faculty attended the four matinee performances on Wednesday and Thursday before the public performances on Friday and Saturday. On Saturday, a special holiday activity was offered before the performance in the Earle N. Wright Community Room, where children could decorate gingerbread cookies and have hot chocolate. The event was co-sponsored by Cowley Theatre and Cowley Education.

Cowley College’s Nick Albrecht directed the show and wrote the adaptation. The original children's book is by Kristin Kladstrup.

“The process of adapting a book to the stage was really interesting,” Albrecht said. “There was a lot of learning for the students and myself in terms of working on a brand new script. The audiences were great, especially in finding out what worked and what didn’t as part of the show. We are very grateful to have had the opportunity to present it to our audiences, both young and young at heart.”

Cast list:

JIM…Evan Quiett
JIM’s MOTHER…Kaleyah Evans
CAPTAIN COOKIE…Aigiza Nasyrova
WAVY…Alicia Hunter
DOTS…Devin Jarrell
PATCHY…Charles Barlow Jr.
GREYBEARD…Anna Sade
PUFFYPANTS / MOUSE…Kendall Cook
SANTA CLAUS…Special Guest TBA

Student Designers:

STAGE MANAGER…Hannah Brean
ASST. STAGE MANAGER…Krys Pugh
SET DESIGN…Patrick Burgess-Clark
LIGHTING DESIGN…Amilia Baca
SOUND DESIGN…Kaycee Schulte
COSTUME DESIGN…Karime Cazares Castillo & Evan Quiett

Rama Peroo | Director of Institutional Communication
Cowley College
125 S. 2nd Street
Arkansas City, KS 67005
rama.peroo@cowley.edu