Jungalbook' on CSC stage this weekend

On Friday, the play will be presented to more than 900 elementary students from schools in Dawes and Sioux Counties, Hemingford and the Red Cloud School at Pine Ridge. Those performances will be at both 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. The Chadron Public Library Foundation is helping sponsor Friday’s activities.

The director, Roger Mays, said the play is family entertainment that focuses on identity, belonging, self-reliance and the sometimes-painful-but-inevitable choices of growing into adulthood.

“Jungalbook” was written in 1982 by Edward Mast, who won a Distinguished Play Award from the American Alliance for Theatre and Education in 1991. Mast freely adapted the play from various stories and poems in Rudyard Kipling’s “Jungle Books” that were written in the mid-1890s. Kipling based his books on experiences he had while living in India as a youth.

Mays said that although the names of the characters are the same, there is little connection between the play and Disney’s “The Jungle Book” films that also were based on the Kipling stories.

The story centers around Mowgli, a “mancub” who is abandoned in the jungle after his parents are killed by a nasty tiger, Sherakhan, who continually seeks to harm Mowgli.

A friendly panther, Bagheera, protects Mowgli and asks Akela, the leader of a wolf pack, to raise the strange young creature.

After a while, Mowgli is embarrassed because he has no beautiful fur or powerful claws like his jungle friends. But he learns that his hands can be useful when he frees Hathi, the elephant, by removing the rope humans have placed around its neck.

Mark Griffith, a senior from Chadron, is cast as Mowgli. Sherakhan is played by Cody Griebel, a junior from of Hot Springs. Bagheera is played by Dan Giffee, a senior from Dawson, Neb. Akela is portrayed by Jesse Hamer, a sophomore from Box Elder, S.D.

Other cast members include Brad Buckles and Mason Quinn, Cheyenne; Nick Anderson, Hemingford; Rhett Breedlove, Riverton, Wyo.; John Bryan III, Denver; Chelsea Custer, Harrisburg; Derek Eisenbraun, Gordon; Barbie Essay, Alliance; Jesse Mamer, Box Elder, S.D.; Mike Mamula, Box Elder, S.D.; Colt Neidhardt, Crawford; Scott Roberts, Chadron; and Amanda Smith, Kemmerer, Wyo.

The set includes swings and bridges made of rope. The designer, Scott Cavin, describes the set as “a big playground.”

Brittany Benardis, a CSC student from Casper, is the costume designer.

Reservations may be made by contacting the Memorial Hall Box Office, which is open from 2 to 5 p.m. each weekday. The telephone number is 432-6360.