SAXTONS RIVER — The Main Street Arts children's theater camp presents “The Pied Piper of Hamelin” on Saturday, Aug. 8 and Sunday, Aug. 9, at 2 p.m., at the community arts center.
The play is an adaptation of the classic German folk tale by the Brothers Grimm and a 19th-century poem by Browning and relates how the rat-infested German town of Hamelin hires a strange figure who claims to be able to lead all of the vermin out of town by playing his magic pipe.
When he accomplishes this feat, the town refuses to pay him, and he leads all of the children away in revenge. Thus the phrase, “Always pay the piper."
The MSA production features two snakes from BPC (Boa Pest Control) who help the piper, a gang of arrogant rats who set out to devour everything in the village, an incompetent mayor, and the children who love to play their recorders.
The production is directed by Mary Hepburn and Gordon Korstange and marks MSA's 22nd theater camp production.
The performance is the culmination of the work by 20 children, ages nine to 12, who go through the steps of producing a musical from first reading to final production in five days.
This year's cast members hail from Saxtons River, Westminster, Bellows Falls, Landgrove, Chester, Putney, and Washington, D.C.