Children enjoy different types of music

It's Cinderella with a dash of soap opera.

"Cinderella has this long-lost brother, Robert, but they call him Bob," said Nathan Lubeck, a 13-year-old home-school pupil who plays the role of Bob in the Children's Musical Theatre Ensemble's production of Twinderella.

Bob's life parallels that of his twin sister. Where she has an evil stepmother and stepsisters, he has an evil stepfather and stepbrothers.

She has a fairy godmother, and he has a godfather who sends Bob to a ball game where he gets muddy cleats.

"It's entertaining. It's just fun," said Davis Watts, a North Augusta Middle School seventh-grader who play Prince Charming.

Twinderella is a musical featuring about 30 performers in elementary through high school.

Although the show was written for adults to perform for children, it adapts well to a mostly child cast, said Mickey Lubeck, the director of Twinderella. There also are adults in the production.

"Anytime I do a musical, I usually end up cutting music," she said.

The music is either too complicated or too mushy for children, Lubeck said.

In this play, the music is great - "every song is doable. There's not too much harmony. Most of the songs are up-tempo and fun to sing," she said.

Michael Viator, 11, a Richmond County home-school pupil, plays the Duke of Earl, who spends a lot of his time with a glass slipper and a muddy cleat.

"I like the songs," he said.

The music ranges from a waltz to 1950s doo-wop.

Lubeck said the music is fun and there also is a lot of humor to carry the play.

There will be two shows at Columbia County's Jabez Sanford Hardin Performing Arts Center.