Take A Holiday of 'Pure Imagination' With NCT's CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY

While the debate rages on about the proper time to start celebrating the holidays, Nashville Children’s Theatre may have devised the ideal plan with their current onstage offering – the world premiere of the theater-for-younger-audiences version of the recent Broadway musical Charlie and The Chocolate Factory.

It’s not a Christmas show, but with its fanciful tale of unique characters, set in a world crafted by writer Roald Dahl (who based his whimsical tale on his own childhood experiences, including a fascination with all things chocolate and other confections), which may be accessed by one’s own heart and imagination, the story of young Charlie Bucket’s trip to the legendary factory owned by Willie Wonka himself seems a generous gift indeed for theater-goers of all ages, regardless of which holiday is in the offing.

Thus, through December 17, NCT allows you to acclimate to the festive season on your own time, without much fuss or muss, or wear and tear on the psyche – they’ve done all the heavy lifting required to transform your world into Charlie’s – no matter when on the calendar the visit to Willie Wonka’s stomping grounds may actually take place.

With Charlie and The Chocolate Factory – the 16th world premiere to debut at NCT in the past seven years and with three more come in the 2024 half of the season – artistic director Ernie Nolan and his team of collaborators deliver an absolutely wondrous holiday season offering, transporting audience members to a world of pure imagination, where any dream can come true, and the most vivid expectations can become reality.

NCT’s Charlie and The Chocolate Factory exemplifies the power of theater to transport audiences to another time and place and that, to my way of thinking at least, is the perfect holiday season adventure. Audiences enter NCT’s historic Ann Stahlman Hill Theater to discover a fantasyland come to life in a rainbow of colors which transform the redoubtable auditorium into yet another place where any dream is possible and young minds are challenged to expand beyond all limitations. It becomes the setting for the world inhabited by Charlie Bucket and his eccentric family and the unlikely quartet of other golden ticket winners gathered from around the world – Augustus Gloop, Violet Beauregarde, Mike Teevee and Veruca Salt – to discover who is lucky enough to succeed Willie Wonka as premiere chocolatier.

The show (such a simple word for such a vibrant undertaking) features an all-star cast of beloved Nashville actors (Douglas Waterbury-Tieman, charming, gracious and borderline sinister as Willie Wonka; the always watchable Garris Wimmer as an authentically loving Grandpa Joe; Corrie Maxwell in as fine a voice as ever as Mrs. Bucket/Cherry and more; Nashville’s quintessential musical theater queen Megan Murphy Chambers as Grandma Josephine/Mrs. Green/Mrs.Gloop and more; versatile Katie Bruno creating another memorable performance as Grandma Georgina/Mrs. Teevee and more; multi-talented Dustin Davis as Grandpa George/Mr.Salt and more; Bakari King, putting all of his enormous stage presence on full display as Mr. Beauregarde and others) accompanied by some young performers (including Lipscomb University alum Jonathan Thompson, who spent the summer onstage at Cumberland County Playhouse, and is joined by Jude Williams, with whom he shares the role of Augustus Gloop; Carter Miller and Oxford McDade, alternating in the pivotal role of Charlie Bucket and holding their own with actors of far more experience; Bennett Miller and Kingsley McDade, alternating as the irascible and devious Mike Teevee; with Jordan Marie Elizabeth Nixon – mark my words, this young woman is going to be a star one day [well, she already is] — but seriously – as Violet Beauregarde; and the amazing Nadia Giles, committed and focused as Veruca Salt) we are eager to see develop further on local stages, who take us on a journey fueled by imagination, inspiration, technical wizardry and stageworthy magic made possible by the collective experiences of all involved.

Charlie and The Chocolate Factory is, in fact, just another glittering, glorious feather in the cap of Nashville Children’s Theatre, which is the oldest theater company presenting theater for younger audiences in the United States. NCT’s reputation, something for us all to take justifiable pride in, is enriched by the international acclaim the entity has brought to our city.

Director/choreographer Nolan crafts an eminently watchable musical that moves along at an enjoyable pace and he deftly engages with his ensemble of actors to bring their characters to life with his requisite razzle-dazzle.

Under the direction of Christopher Bailey, the musical’s score – which includes music by Marc Shaiman and lyrics by Scott Wittman and Marc Shaiman, along with songs by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley from the 1971 film Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory – provides the necessary foundation that underpins the fantasy created from Dahl’s original writings and which lives on in the musical’s book by David Greig, letting each character express their heightened emotions with great style and melody. For this TYA version of the musical, the production’s list of musical numbers is condensed, which ensures a running time of just over an hour (about 80 to 85 minutes).

As is the artistic tradition at NCT, Nolan surrounds himself with a top-flight team of theatrical designers, which includes Scott Leathers (who designs the actual physical and fantastical world in which the musical is set and then lights it to sheer perfection, electrifying the proceedings in the process, infusing the whole spectacle with a sense of wonderment), Billy Ditty (who designs a bevy of absolutely gorgeous costumes for his actors, achieving a level of artistry that is not so much unexpected as it is stunning and, perhaps, revelatory in the context of his tremendous catalogue of NCT costumery over the years), Jesse Mooney-Bullock (who creates puppets to fill the roles of the Oompa-Loompas that produced so many gasps during the opening performance that audiences seemed breathless in anticipation) and Marsalis Turner (whose sound design allows every word to be heard, every utterance to be understood and every onstage experience to be felt).

Charlie and The Chocolate Factory. Music by Marc Shaiman. Lyrics by Scott Wittman and Marc Shaiman. Book by David Greig. Directed and choreographed by Ernie Nolan. Musical direction by Christopher Bailey. Stage managed by Abby Locke Austin and Joe Mobley. Presented by Nashville Children’s Theatre, 25 Middleton Street, Nashville. Through December 17. Running time: 85 minutes (with no intermission). For further information, go to www.nashvillechildrenstheatre.org.

photos by Michael Scott Evans

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