By Annie O’Neill EDITORIAL INTERN
For 29 local students, the final school bell rang Friday, June 8, serving only as a prelude to their first day on set Monday for “Matilda.” That rapid turnaround is the heart of Big Sky Broadway, a program that has spent the last 16 years showing that when you ask kids to do something real, they commit.
In 2010, Barbara Rowley founded Big Sky Broadway around a simple philosophy: need creates action. Rowley noticed a gap in Big Sky’s summer theatre programming and launched a tradition that has since reshaped the local arts scene, eventually forming a partnership with the Lone Peak High School’s music and theater department.
This year, Big Sky High School music teacher Tim Sullivan directs the production with support from Ursula Blythe and Frieda Fabozzi, both former participants who have returned to work behind the scenes. Rowley and Sullivan double cast the show to give more students opportunities for leading roles.
“One of the reasons we do a musical is because you can always add more people to the chorus,” Rowley said. This marks the second time the program has staged “Matilda,” a show Rowley loves for its “empowerment and, to some degree, female empowerment.”
The young actors arrived at rehearsals last week already knowing their lines and songs. Within days, they were blocking scenes and mastering choreography. Now, in the final week before opening, they run “stumble-throughs,” rehearsals where production elements such as microphones and costumes are added daily.
The program casts every child who tries out, rooted in the belief that kids rise to meet high expectations. They finish school on a Friday and show up ready to work Monday. And the work is hard: long days and fast learning, yet they show up for it anyway, all to be part of something meaningful.
“It turns out, kids really like doing something real,” Rowley said. It’s an ethos known locally as “Big Sky Broadway magic.”
The program operates out of Big Opportunities, a nonprofit, and relies on tuition, ticket sales and grants to cover its budget, reinvesting every dollar into staff, costumes and every child who hits the stage. For participants like Harper Bedell, an incoming eighth-grader who has played a villain in the last two productions, the appeal is simple: dancing, friends and learning every move and song.
“A show calls for a character mindset rather than a sports mindset,” Bedell said at a recent rehearsal, adding that theater offers a unique support system: “There are more people to rely on to help you.” The hardest moment, she explained, is the week before the show, when the cast pulls together timing, costumes and microphones for the first time and the nerves creep in. Bedell said she doesn’t get nervous.
The impact of the program extends far beyond the local stage. Frieda Fabozzi, who played the title role in 2019, now participates in theater at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington. This summer, she will sing the national anthem at the Big Sky PBR on Thursday, July 16, an opportunity she credits to the confidence she built at Big Sky Broadway.
“The skills theater teaches extend well beyond the stage: thinking on your feet, staying kind under stress, committing to the work,” Fabozzi said at rehearsal.
What Rowley built goes beyond a theater camp. What she ended up creating was a community, the kind students return to, year after year.
“Roald Dahl’s Matilda: The Musical” runs June 26-27 at 6:30 p.m. at the Warren Miller Performing Arts Center, 45465 Gallatin Road, Big Sky. The production features students in grades 5-8. For tickets, visit the Warren Miller Performing Arts Center website.
