Pittsburgh's Prime Stage heads to Narnia with 'Lion, Witch & the Wardrobe'

Mar. 2—Rehearsals for Prime Stage Theatre's production of "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" are about to enter what stage manager Britt Kolek said is the best but also the most difficult phase.

"We're starting the really heavily technical rehearsals," said Kolek, 24, of Freeport, who has been working at Prime Stage for a year and a half and will be managing her third show with the company. "We have amazing designers who've put everything together, and now we get to put it all into the theater space."

C.S. Lewis' story of the four Pevensie children and their trip through a wardrobe into the magical world of talking animals and evil witches has captured the imagination of millions and was made into a film trilogy in the mid-2000s.

For Penn Township native Caitlin Young, being enveloped by the fantastical is nothing new: she spent the past seven years working at Walt Disney World in Florida after graduating from Duquesne University in 2015.

"When you work there, you can audition for the choir in their annual Christmas show, and I got to do that for two years," Young said. "I got to sing with some really cool people like Neil Patrick Harris and Whoopi Goldberg."

In "Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe," Young will have an acting challenge she hasn't faced before — playing the anthropomorphized animal Mrs. Beaver.

"I had to really think about the physicality of it, and the way that a beaver would behave compared to a human," she said. "For me, it's been figuring out things like: how would she walk? How would she react to things?"

Eight of the 14 actors in the show are transformed by makeup and costumes into Narnia's inhabitants. Kolek said putting those pieces together with the lighting, the sets and the rest of the production makes the run-up to opening night a big challenge.

"That's the hardest part, but it's also the most rewarding," she said. "You've seen all of these things in models, digital renderings, but now we get to see it all onstage. Actors can find that final piece of their character because they're now in this world."

That's the case for Young, she said.

"I'm definitely one of those people where it feels real once you have the costumes, props and set pieces," she said. "I'm a big fan of technical theater, and we have an amazing team working on this show. The stuff they're putting together really makes me believe it more as an actor, and that belief really helps."

The show will be directed by Prime Stage co-founder and producing artistic director Wayne Brinda. It opens Saturday, and opening night will also include a post-show Q&A discussion with David von Schlichten, dean at Seton Hill University's School of Humanities.

The show will be at 8 p.m. March 4, 10 and 11, with 2:30 p.m. matinee performances March 5, 11, and 12. March 11 will be a sensory-inclusive performance, and March 12 will include an American Sign Language interpreter and audio description. The show will take place at the New Hazlett Theater, 6 Allegheny Square East on Pittsburgh's North Side.

Tickets are $8-$50 and are available at NewHazlettTheater.org/events. For more, see PrimeStage.com.

Patrick Varine is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Patrick by email at pvarine@triblive.com or via Twitter .