The loveable Disney film Tarzan has always held a special place in my heart. I was ecstatic to hear that Tarzan would be making an appearance as the fall theatre production.

With expectations heightened after last year’s blue star award-winning performance of A Christmas Carol, I entered the Little Theatre. Except it wasn’t the Little Theatre anymore. I was in a jungle paradise.

It was exciting to find a misty atmosphere, swinging rope vines, and even a trickling waterfall, not to mention the giant spinning tree in the middle of the stage. It was truly a captivating experience.

Within the first ten minutes of the show, I was hooked. I had been captured by senior Roslinde Rivera’s performance as the caring ape-mother Kala, as she saved the baby Tarzan from the leopard. Senior Tyler Frost, who played the leopard, truly blew me away. He really embraced his role as a flesh-eating feline predator. Sitting front row, I saw first-hand how intimidating he could be. I found numerous audience members, including myself, would shrink back as he passed. I will openly admit that I felt the urge to run when he looked me in the eye. I fought the impulse, and I’m glad I did.

A musical is attended for, of course, the music. While sticking with many of the songs from the original Disney Tarzan film, other songs by Phil Collins were added, including my favorite two duets between Tarzan and Jane, and two between Kala and Kerchak. Rivera and senior Turner Staton, who played Kerchak, both have strong, beautiful voices that complemented each other nicely on both, “No Other Way” and “Sure As Sun Turns To Moon.”

I also really enjoyed the duet, “For The First Time,” between Tarzan and Jane. It was a romantic ballad between seniors Austin Jones and Haley Brown, who played Tarzan and Jane. The two have beautiful, sweet voices that matched their characters well. It is amazing to me that high school students, such as Brown and Jones, can have such obvious talent.

I loved all the songs, as Tarzan is one of my favorite Disney soundtracks, but my favorite had to be “Trashin’ the Camp.”  I loved the nonsensical nature of the song, compared to other songs in the musical. The young, rowdy apes gave me joy as they smashed plates and drummed on pots and pans.

The cast could not have been picked more perfectly. Each cast member was paired to his or her ideal character.

I was happy to find that both Jones and Brown could convincingly play the roles that I loved so much as a child. Jones seemed as if he were really learning everything for the first time. From the examination of Jane’s foot, to his first time wearing a suit, he was curious and intrigued by the strangers like him. Brown was just as ladylike and adorable as the Jane in the film. She looked impeccable in her bright yellow dress; exactly how I would have imagined the real Jane Porter.

The pairing of Rivera and Staton as Kerchak and Kala made my heart want to sing. Both characters had a strength that Rivera and Staton captured and let shine through the heavy makeup and airbrushed abs.

Junior Noa Adams, who played Terk, and Landon Tuso, (son of Prevention Specialist Amy Tuso) who played the young Tarzan, also did an amazing job. I could not have been more pleased by Noa’s sassy attitude, and little Tuso, who had some spunk of his own, creating a friendship that had me rolling with laughter throughout the performance.

Senior Alex Hemphill, who played Clayton, made a flawless, and comical, dirt-bag. I found myself truly hating him as he yelled out lines such as, “they won’t object… once we throw them overboard.” I wanted to break his gun over his own head, in a good way.

I found myself mesmerized by each character again and again. I couldn’t help but laugh when Staton entered the stage fluffier than before, to show that he had aged. I thought the silliness between Tarzan and Jane during their first meeting was perfect. Tarzan performed cartwheels for Jane, a cute touch to show how primitively he was raised. The small, and somewhat humorous details such as these gave me the Tarzan craze that I had lost from my childhood years. I felt like swinging from trees again. But who has time for that when the ship for England arrives in only a few days?