Finding their ‘big voice’

“I’ll boil your gizzards for my supper!” Izzy Schumacher – a/k/a Captain Hook – will growl later this week in a children’s theater production of “Peter Pan: A Musical Adventure.”

The rising 8th grader, dressed in velvet pirate garb, said it was her favorite line because it has taught her not so much how to portray the evil nemesis of “Peter and the Lost Boys,” but how to inhabit a “big voice so that people can understand you and know what you’re talking about.”

That’s practice for the stage, she said, as well as in life.

And it’s a lesson she and the cast of nearly 40 students, from third through eighth grade, have learned while escaping summer vacation doldrums and screen-time temptations for the chance to sing, dance, and act. They have been rehearsing the recreation district production for two months.

The show will take the stage at 6 p.m. Friday and at 2 p.m. Saturday at the Performing Arts Center.

Tickets cost $5 at the door or $4 with a donation to Marion County Food Bank.

The show is being directed by Megan Jones, with assistant direction by Lena Hall, and music direction by Shyla Harris.