[This is a guest post by Ensemble Studio member Jenna Douglas, a pianist and coach. Jenna Douglas is performing Hansel and Gretel with the Xstrata Ensemble Studio School Tour. Follow Jenna on twitter at @jennamariepiano!] 

Hansel and Gretel is one of those kids' stories you remember vaguely from childhood.  It's the kind where when you Google the synopsis to jog your memory, you find out it was actually not a kids' story all along. That weird juxtaposition of "kid's story" and "scary" always does it for me; but I'm sure terrified, nightmare-plagued kids would disagree. So when director Joel Ivany and I went about adapting a version of Hansel and Gretel to make it less dark and more school-friendly, I wondered if the show could retain at least a bit of its alluring mix of light and dark.

Entertaining kids is a tricky balance. Predicting what they'll see and remember during a show is always a guess, but they can be counted upon to be harsh critics. So I extend many congratulations to Joel, our stage manager Lesley Abarquez and the entire cast for putting together a beautiful show that is beautifully sung, smart, and magical.

In this production, the Mother (Ambur Braid) and Father (Neil Craighead/Philippe Sly) are more hangry (hungry leads to angry) than abusive, the Sandman (Neil Craighead/Philippe Sly) seems much more full of testosterone than usual, and Hansel's (Rihab Chaieb) and Gretel's (Lisa DiMaria) spiritual reverence has been cashed in for the worship of sugar. The Witch (Michael Barrett) is a bumbling, bespectacled hag, full of gaseous outbursts and ceaseless saliva. There's even a puppet show.

We begin the 2011 school tour this week. I can't wait to look out at the kids, and try to see what they see.

Photo: A scene from the Xstrata Ensemble Studio School Tour production of Hansel and Gretel, 2011. Photo © Karen Reeves, 2011.