Recently I had the pleasure of sitting down with Noah Wilde and Mallory McCollum, who will be starring as Frederick and Mabel in the fast-paced operetta “Pirates of Penzance”—coming to Cairn in March!

 When did you first get into acting? Was there anyone who inspired you to act or join a drama club?

Mallory: I’ve been kind of singing ever since I was a little girl. My family’s pretty musical. I’d always sing in our little kid church choir and perform skits. When I was living in Oklahoma in the summer between third and fourth grade, I got to do a community children’s production of “Beauty and the Beast.” It was so magical… I’ve always loved knowing how the magic happens as well as enjoying the magic. And ever since I’ve been like, “I love this, I want to keep doing this.” So, I did drama all through high school. Now, as part of my music education I’ll sometimes work with staff and choirs and in some cases, the choir director will also be the drama director, so I’ve also gotten to work on shows with other students too.

Noah: From a young age I was immersed in the whole experience of being a choir kid and singing, but I got my inspiration to try out for the musical when I was in my senior year of high school. I was put into this role in “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown,” because one of the other extras dropped out. Afterward, one of my teachers said, “You know, you could’ve played a lot of roles in that show if you had actually auditioned.” When I got to Cairn and heard they were doing musicals I figured, “I really wanted to try this.” This year I wrote “any role” on my audition sheet and ended up getting the lead in the musical.

Mallory: And he’s doing a great job!

Noah: Thanks Mallory. You’re doing a great job too.

Mallory: Oh, thank you.

What would you like people to know about the musical this year?

Noah: It’s definitely interesting that it’s… complicated in a lot of ways, but it makes it more intriguing because the difficulty challenges us. I think that’s a good thing when it comes to a musical because it keeps you engaged with the actual music and the show in general.

Mallory: Yeah. The other thing is, Pirates of Penzance is a comedy. A lot of times people think ‘comedy’ and they think of shallow characters or slapstick humor, things like that, which we definitely have some of. But there’s a bit of truth, a bit of heart to the show in which really makes the lines funnier, and makes you as an audience member more invested in the characters on the stage. It’s…a night of fun. At the same time, there is a great level of heart in it. A lot of it’s at a break neck pace, which makes it really fun for the audience to try to keep up with, but it just adds to the levity of the whole show.

So, it follows a more Shakespeare in kind of a comedy where there’s more depth to it.

Mallory: Oh yeah, a little bit. The depth is a little less obvious, but it’s definitely there. Sometimes people won’t recognize that or they’ll miss it if they don’t think about it or read the synopsis in a brochure at the beginning.

Me too. So, Noah, you are a Frederick, right? And Mallory, you are Frederick’s love interest?

Mallory: I am. My name is Mabel. Very special name. That was actually one of my great grandmother’s names, so it’s kind of an homage to her. But do you know the plot of the show at all?

A little bit. It sounds very exciting! So, what would you say would be the best part of playing your characters?

Mallory: At this [time], we’re not quite finished staging, and staging can reflect character. When I think back on past shows, there’ll be one specific thing I did on the stage that I think “that’s so my character.” I’m embodying [Mabel] currently through the very bright pink parasol that I enjoy carrying around.

Noah: Hitting people with.

Mallory: No, I haven’t! Not on purpose! I think Mabel learns a lot from Frederick. It’s a little bit of “love at first sight,” but Fredrick is very honor- bound throughout the show and it’s his sense of duty that I think Mabel is particularly attracted to beyond the fact that he’s very attractive. Then as the show progresses, she takes on that sense of duty. I feel like our culture doesn’t necessarily understand that as deeply– to the point where we laugh at it. But there is a true sense of honor in sticking by your word and doing what you think is right just because it’s right.

Noah: That’s a tough question…just thinking it through. In some ways there’s a nice aspect of just playing through the role. I think that the learning experience, just learning [about] the show in general and learning my role in the show progressively is very enjoyable for me because [Fredrick is] ignorant about a lot of things. At one point in the I haven’t even seen anybody younger than 47 in terms of a woman. And when [Frederick sees] these young girls it’s a new experience….like, “what are these females that are my age?” I think it’s fun just to play along with the character and try to figure [him] out for myself, [the character’s progression throughout the show]. It’s always enjoyable to just like learn a new thing about [Frederick] that he might not have known before.

Yeah, sometime when I’m writing [new] characters, they won’t tell me things until I think, “if I were to answer this question as my character would she say?”

Mallory: Definitely, it’s slipping into somebody else’s shoes and in our sense there’s a rough outline of what they’re supposed to look like. There are a few things that are at our discretion or are shaped by the show and you have to figure out how they’re shaped by the show. It is figuring out how they would react versus how would I react, putting your own spin on it–without compromising the integrity of the character.

Any advice to anyone interested in becoming part of the drama crew in later shows?

 Mallory: Yeah, do it. I feel like a lot of people view shows and even a lot of the musical activities as “only for music majors” or “only for drama majors.” And a lot of times I feel like it drives people away. We all have a lot of gifts and talents beyond just one or the other. For music majors, we feel like our strongest gift in town is music, but we know that it’s not our only one. I would just encourage people to really do it because drama’s a great experience. It’s a great confidence builder. It’s a great way to meet new people and have some fun. I mean, we’re really a family. We get stuck, we see highs, we see the lows, and we create something really cool together. So yeah, just do it.

Noah: Coming from a non-music major, I’m enjoying it. It’s a lot for being first musical that I’ve done. It’s stressful, it’s hard, it’s a lot of work. It’s a lot of things to do… but it’s so worth it near the end when you’re getting to the really good parts of the musical where it’s like: Okay, now I’m actually starting to get this. I’m getting into a rhythm of learning everything. It’s definitely worth it in the way that it takes a lot out of you, but in the end, you can see like the full fruition of like where it comes into.  And it’s really helpful to just like remind yourself, “Hey that wasn’t so bad after all.” God does that with us a lot where He takes you through some stuff and then says, “See, you made it through that. That was no big deal.”

It’s like seeing brush strokes a canvas and then seeing the whole painting later and being amazed.

Mallory: Yeah. You come out better for it. A lot of people [after doing a Drama performance] say, “I didn’t know I could do things like that.” Especially once we hit tech week, “I don’t know how I’m going to handle this all.” Then we get through it and we get to the end saying, “Oh that wasn’t so bad.” Then the next time, it doesn’t seem as stressful.

Gilbert and Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance is a comedic operetta about Frederick, a young man accidentally apprenticed to a band of pirates! He falls for the beautiful Mabel, but the Pirate King is set on stopping to newly-budded romance once Fredrick decides to renounce the pirate way of life. Join Malloy, Noah, and the rest of the cast as they perform this hilarious musical on the following showdays:

 Friday, March 1 at 7:30pm
Saturday, March 2 at 2:00pm
Saturday, March 2 at 7:30pm

Order your tickets now!