Reviews of Maxx's (my 12 yr old) show - I AM ONE SUPER PROUD MOM!!!20:55 Jan 01 2009
Times Read: 664
A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant Is a True Gift
By Robrt L. Pela
About three minutes into Stray Cat Theatre's newest production, I found myself thinking: This can't be really happening. When you go to see it — and you must, if you do nothing else this holiday season, go see this astonishing stage production — you will almost certainly experience the same sense of delighted confusion.
No kidding: This is a terrific play.
I was aware that A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant was performed entirely by children, who would be telling the story of how the late religious leader L. Ron Hubbard created Scientology, the controversial science fiction-based religion most prominently associated with movie stars John Travolta and Tom Cruise. But I found myself wondering how director Gary Minyard, who deserves high and endless praise for pulling off this improbable entertainment, explained irony and camp to people who only recently stopped believing in Santa Claus.
It helps that Scientology Pageant's two leads are so talented. Tiny Brittney Peters, dressed in a snow-white gown and a tinfoil halo as a narrator named Angelic Girl, sings with the sort of big, clear voice rarely found in performers even twice her age. She reads wink-and-nudge comic lines without so much as a smirk, another rare talent in any child performer.
I typically don't review the performances of children, but Maxx Carlisle-King is no child. He is a peculiar force of nature — one with perfect pitch and the ability to sell comic lines like a pro — trapped in a kid's body. There wasn't a single precocious moment in the boy's performance, and I became convinced, watching him, that if he were 20 years older, I'd still have been awed by his stage skills.
The supporting cast is perfect, too, in part because they are essentially playing themselves: Kids playing kids in an oddball holiday show, sometimes muttering their lines while having to haul cheesy set pieces on and off stage. It's a keen trick of playwright Kyle Jarrow's to include mediocrity as an element in his play, but what's more impressive about the playwright's material is that it presents both Hubbard and Scientology rather earnestly, and rarely riffs on them.
Jarrow's bit about the difference between the Active Mind and the Analytical Mind, acted out by a pair of pre-teens dressed as floppy pink brains, is as instructive as it is amusing. A courtroom scene in which a young woman sings about how Scientology saved her (while Hubbard manipulates her limbs from behind and eventually takes over her vocal) is a subtle exception. 
But if there's any disrespect, it's not in Jarrow's script, but rather inferred by an audience who finds it amusing that Scientologist Kirstie Alley "got clear" (a high Scientology achievement) only to slum in a show called Fat Actress, or who can't help but titter at some of the religion's more oddball appliances, like the E-Meter, which essentially measures the pollution in one's soul.
There's plenty of campy, straightforward humor, too, like a nativity attended by children dressed as a chicken and a giant snail, or a number during which the vocalist calls out "Dance break!" just before kids begin boogieing maniacally, as if they were the crazed cast from a rerun of Zoom. I rarely stopped laughing during this barely-hour-long show, and my single complaint about A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant is that it ended too soon.
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"A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant" - Stray Cat Theatre
This review aired on KBAQ December 8, 2008
CLEVER “HOLIDAY” SHOW KIDS SHOW SLAMS SCIENTOLOLGY
“A VERY MERRY UNAUTHORIZED CHILDREN’S SCIENTOLOGY PAGEANT”
Stray Cat Theatre, Tempe Performing Arts Center
Tempe, AZ
Stray Cat Theatre delivers an unusual holiday show ever so cleverly. “A Very Merry Unauthorized Children’s Scientology Pageant” looks at the Church of Scientology and its wealthy founder, L. Ron Hubbard, as a funny and very satiric parody of the Nativity. Author Kyle Jarrow presents his comic slams and thoughtful questioning where Hubbard’s birth and his search for religious truth are compared to Christ’s.
The entire show is presented by a talented ensemble of 8- to 12-year olds as a school pageant. Huge praise goes to director Gary Minyard who crafts miracles with these young but amazingly polished troupers.
Minyard asks a lot of his cast. They must learn Jarrow’s tricky satiric puns and off-center comic barbs and deliver them with non-stop but slyly skewed humor kids this age rarely understand. The audience laughed uproariously at the performance I attended. Minyard also expects them to learn cuttingly savage songs that further question the religion, some tricky but cute choreography, clever but intricate staging, handle myriad costume changes, shift scenery, and use endless props. That the cast brings this challenge off with nary a misstep is quite an achievement.
Jarrow picks and pokes at Hubbard, his teachings, and how Hubbard’s religious thinking has turned him into a wealthy man. The script asks all the questions you have ever had about Scientology. That this young cast can deliver this tongue-in-cheek commentary with such delicious abandon is quite a credit. That this young ensemble probably doesn’t fully understand the heady satire makes this exemplary production even more amazing. 
Maxx Carlisle-King is poised and always in control as L. Ron. This young actor’s theatrical spark and comic flair suggests a long and successful stage career. No less sharp is Brittney Peters’ Angelic Girl. This character functions as the show’s narrator as she guides the ensemble through its questioning and probing of this unusual religion that inspires its followers by removing their emotions and relying on their analytical ability that uses weird and twisted logic. Everyone in the cast, though, has at least one standout moment.
“A Very Merry Unauthorized Children’s Scientology Pageant” isn’t for those who want a traditional holiday show but if pointed but thoughtful comic probing delivered by talented troupers is your thing, this show will delight. “A Very Merry Unauthorized Children’s Scientology Pageant” continues through December 20 at the old Tempe Performing Arts Center in downtown Tempe. For tickets, call the Stray Cat Theatre box office at 480-820-8022 or go online at www.straycathteatre.org.
Grade: A - 5 out of 5 stars
Posted on 08 Dec 2008 by Chris CurcioContent Management Powered by CuteNews
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Kerry Lengel's preview on Scientology Pageant at Stray Cat
Kids and Scientology: Stray Cat presents satirical Christmas pageant
by Kerry Lengel - Dec. 4, 2008 06:32 PM
The Arizona Republic
Tom Cruise, John Travolta and Kirstie Alley are just a few of the characters who pop up in A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant. There's also a shiny box-headed robot with wire-whisk antennas and, of course, Xenu, the diabolical interstellar overlord.
But Gary Minyard, who's directing a cast of 8- to 12-year-olds in this anti-holiday show from Stray Cat Theatre, insists the butt of the joke is not Scientology or its founder, L. Ron Hubbard.
"To me it's about the pageant, it's about the Nativity play," he says. "I'm thinking about that scene in the movie Love Actually when they are taking all the kids to the pageant, and one of them is dressed as a lobster."
Ron May, the company's artistic director, chimes in: "It definitely takes its jabs, but they are not as overt as the South Park episode (about Scientology). I think it's the fact that it's coming out of the mouths of kids who don't necessarily know what they're saying" that makes the show funny.
Oh, save it for the lawyers. The gimmick of Scientology Pageant is that it's a satire for adults performed by children, but there's no question what the butt of the satire is when 11 cherub-faced youngsters burst into the joyous refrain: "Now the sun will shine / And we'll be just fine / We have got the science of the mind!"
Be that as it may, that gimmick does present unique challenges, both for the show's director and its star.
"I really wanted to research L. Ron Hubbard, but we weren't supposed to know too much about Scientology," says Maxx Carlisle-King, who at age 12 already is a veteran of local stages, winning an ariZoni Theatre Award for his performance in The Who's Tommy at Nearly Naked Theatre.
Looking too much like a pro might be a concern for the older cast members. For the younger kids, well, let's just say there are a lot of lines to remember, marks to hit and props to keep track of.
"I'm riding a fine line between having the kids being kids and having the kids being actors," Minyard says.
"What's funny is all those multiple levels. There's an 8-year-old boy who's playing Tom Cruise, who kind of knows who Tom Cruise is but doesn't really understand his connection to the story of Scientology. How do I get him to jump on the Oprah couch without actually having him watch the video clip?
"I go through an internal language translator in my brain."
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This is the press release the theatre sent to the papers to tell them about the show.
Here at Stray Cat, 'tis the season...
The season for something a little bit naughty...and a little bit nice.
Oh, who are we kidding?
It's us. Maybe a liiiiittle more naughty.
This time, though...the naughtiness is entirely G-rated.
Why, you ask?
Because we're the cornerstone of family entertainment in the valley.
Ha. We can't even type that with a straight face.
Actually, because we are doing our very first show - with a cast - of amazingly adorable and wickedly talented - grade school children.
They're our official honorary Stray Cat kittens ready to amp up your holidays Stray Cat style!
The buzz and the rumors are true, and you can see it for yourself starting Friday...
A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant
By Kyle Jarrow
Based on a concept by Alex Timbers
Directed by Gary Minyard
This holiday season, join us as a jubilant cast of children celebrate the controversial Church of Scientology in uplifting pageantry and song. The actual teachings of Scientology are explained and dissected against the candy-colored backdrop of a traditional nativity play. An ensemble cast of grade school children (no, we’re not kidding) portraying Tom Cruise, Kirstie Alley, John Travolta, and other less starry Scientologists, tells the story of L. Ron Hubbard’s meteoric rise from struggling science fiction writer to supreme leader of a (highly-profitable) New Age religious empire. Avant-garde performance art and children's theatre meet in one of the funniest and most bewildering holiday shows – we guarantee – you will ever see.
Your holidays are about to get a whole lot cooler.
Trust us.
We look forward to seeing you at the theatre... and wait...
just wait 'til you see what we drag in... to Tempe for the holidays!
Thank you for reading.
COMMENTS
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Scarlett
03:17 Jan 29 2009
darktink, bedlam and i will be there...opening night.. ready to rumble