From the Wings: Chitwhins present Sleeping Beauty

Published 1:30 am Monday, May 11, 2026

Friday night was theater night at the Taholah School District, with a cast of 34 students staging Sleeping Beauty for their family, friends and community. The audience was lively, playing along with the Jester’s jokes and “awing” when the caterpillars came on stage.

“These kids are impressive,” commented an audience member as the parents waited for their performers after the show’s end.

Mercedes Lamphier, the middle school English teacher, helped with the play this year, and shared that the rehearsals have been fun to watch and that kids who don’t usually speak up took roles. And even before they had performed the play, students were asking what next year’s play would be: It will be Pied Piper.

This was the first year that high school student participated, and Lamphier said their participation “really elevated the show.” And it showed. Senior Evalyn Waugh clearly had fun playing the character of the Scarella, the witch who temps Sleeping Beauty to prick her finger on the spindle. Her brother, Derrick Waugh, who played the king, played up the king’s sleepy behavior, which prompted laughs from the audience; another younger brother, Duke Waugh, played a troll.

Missoula Children’s Theatre has visited Taholah for a number of years, with many students performing in yearly back-to-back productions. Evalyn did Missoula Children’s Theatre when she was in elementary school and decided to audition with her brother just for fun. Of her younger castmates, “I loved working with the kids,” she said.

She is in the theater arts class that Lamphier started. This year, the students had the opportunity to attend a dress rehearsal of Matilda and visit Seattle to attend a Seattle Children’s Theatre production, and later they will also see Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

This wraps up the Missoula Children’s Theatre tours through Grays Harbor County until the start of the next school year. With a number of schools already committed to bringing Missoula Children’s Theatre’s distinctive red truck to their school, there will be a lot of children’s theatre to look forward to.

Upcoming Productions

Matilda – Driftwood Players

120 E 3rd St, Aberdeen

May 15-16, 22-23 at 7:30 p.m.

May 17, 24 at 2 p.m.

https://main.aberdeendriftwood.com/