McCallie And GPS Middle Schoolers Prepare To Showcase "The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe"

As the title suggests, the Lion has a pretty big role in the GPS/McCallie middle school production of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. In fact, the giant puppet — think a life-sized lion big enough to fit three middle schoolers inside — will probably be the star of the four Black Box Theatre performances new middle school theater director Jared Eddy will oversee at 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday, along with matinees at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.

All the shows are sold out, but GPS and McCallie faculty and staff, as well as students from both schools, get in free.

So how important is Aslan the Lion, who is the only character to appear in all seven plays spun from C.S. Lewis’s classic “Chronicles of Narnia?”

The puppet is so big that had Mr. Eddy not driven to Taylors, S.C., to pick it up a few weeks ago, the Logos Theatre company was going to charge him over $1,000 to ship the puppet to Chattanooga in a wooden crate.

“So I drove over there and packed it into my 2010 Toyota Prius,” explained Mr. Eddy this week, lending further intrigue to the lion, since you’d think you’d have a hard time fitting a hand puppet into a Prius, much less a five-and-a-half-foot-long Lion.

But it’s found a temporary home in the Black Box, where GPS eighth graders Ash Himrod and Ambrose Collins will respectively control the tail and head of the puppet while McCallie sixth grader Tuck Lehn is stuck inside Aslan’s torso.

“It’s different from what I usually do on productions,” said Ash, who moves the tail with sticks. “You’re doing puppeteering for almost two hours.”

Ambrose controls the head of Aslan and she probably has the most work to move the head in a lifelike way with sticks or rods.

“I missed the first day,” she said. “When I started the next day, I became the head of the puppet.”

Between Ash and Ambrose is crouched Tuck, who stands 5'2'', which supposedly makes his job not quite so uncomfortable. But as Ambrose says of Tuck after a long day of practice, “Tuck gets out of the costume and he’s sweating buckets.”

Said Tuck, “I would say it gets up to 110 degrees in the puppet, but I will not have a water backpack (as Ash and Ambrose have suggested he do). We don’t really get in each others’ way because we are so spread out.”

The giant lion puppet isn’t the whole show, of course. Eighth grader Joseph Townley plays Peter Pevensie, who tries to help Aslan save Christmas from the White Witch, along with several of his siblings.

This is the sixth play he’s performed between GPS and McCallie productions in his three years of middle school. He says of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: “The story is one of the strongest we’ve ever done at McCallie. The setting is really cool. A lot of strong props. It’s not a super children’s play like Frozen or Shrek. It’s a story I think everyone can enjoy.”

Joseph also has strong praise for Mr. Eddy.

“He’s very passionate about theater, especially this play,” he said. ”He’s a good guy who’s great at theater. He’s serious, but he’s also playful. He knows how to get the best performances out of us.”

Mr. Eddy says he chose The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe as his first-ever McCallie/GPS production because, “It’s such a beloved show. C.S. Lewis is out of this world. It’s a great story with a great message.”

He’s also so impressed with his young actors.

“There’s a different kind of enthusiasm and spirit with middle schoolers,” said Mr. Eddy, who’s also a registrar for McCallie. "I never have to ask for more energy. And it’s a talented group. They’re a lot more advanced than most students their age."

He also hopes they appreciate how fortunate they are to be in schools that stage two theater productions a year at both the middle school and upper school levels.

“They’re lucky to have a play and a musical every year,” he said.

As young Tuck readies to climb inside the pizza oven known as Aslan the Lion for four shows in three days, he feels lucky not to have an extensive speaking part.

“It’s fun to have a big role,” he said with a big smile this week, “without memorizing much.”