{"id":100181,"date":"2018-04-23T16:42:24","date_gmt":"2018-04-23T22:42:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cms-theater-keeps-audience-laughing-with-the-phantom-tollbooth\/"},"modified":"2018-04-23T16:42:24","modified_gmt":"2018-04-23T22:42:24","slug":"cms-theater-keeps-audience-laughing-with-the-phantom-tollbooth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cms-theater-keeps-audience-laughing-with-the-phantom-tollbooth\/","title":{"rendered":"CMS Theater keeps audience laughing with \u2018The Phantom Tollbooth\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><!-- gallery:8f775093-e5ac-4d26-a071-d019e21b79d2 --><\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video wp-block-embed-youtube naviga-video-embed\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/vQe01ou6O3A\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>The Cortez Middle School Theater premiered \u201cThe Phantom Tollbooth,\u201d a play about making learning fun, to a packed auditorium on Friday night.<\/p>\n<p>The play was directed by Angela Gabardi, computer and theater teacher at Cortez Middle School.<\/p>\n<p>According to seventh-grader Ellai Black, the actress behind the main character, Milo, the play is about the adventures of learning.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMilo goes on a journey throughout the world of numbers and words, and along with Tock and Humbug learns the importance of learning,\u201d Black said.<\/p>\n<p>The students kept a laughing audience along for the ride in Milo\u2019s car with quips throughout the journey.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTollbooth\u201d was a fresh turn for the CMS theater, which last produced the musical \u201cInto the Woods Jr.\u201d In \u201cPhantom,\u201d actors felt they could have more fun with their characters.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe can add so much and do so much with our characters and have a story behind it, and there is a bigger relationship with each character,\u201d said eighth-grader Koral Jackson, who played Kakafonous, Doctor of Dissonance.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEach character is teaching Milo the same thing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>To Alison Freeman, a sixth-grader who played Word Merchant, the play had lessons about time.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat you do with time is what makes it important, and what you do with what you learn is what makes it fun and interesting,\u201d Freeman said.<\/p>\n<p>For the eighth-graders, it was a bittersweet production. They are headed to high school, and many plan to continue to participate in theater.<\/p>\n<p>Mikah Buris, an eighth-grader who plays The Awful Dynne, said he made friends who \u201cactually care.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Eighth-grader Savannah Story, who was assistant stage manager and map master, said she learned to put herself into her characters during her time at CMS drama.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDon\u2019t worry about looking stupid in your costume or feeling stupid saying your lines because those lines are written for a reason, and you just kind of have to put yourself into it,\u201d Story said. \u201cYou can find yourself by being that character.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Students premiere spring play with a lesson about lessons<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":100182,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[21,147,155,13,216],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-100181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-cortez","tag-cortez-middle-school","tag-education","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-montezuma-cortez-school-district-re-1"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100181"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=100181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}