Upcoming original musical, “Bottled Up,” to be performed by local preteen theatre troupe at Marshlight Theatre
Correction to Dec. 4 story on “Bottled Up”
This is the corrected version of this story. The print copy version of Issue 11 misspelled the names of Moya Craik, Elsie McLaughlin, Macy Morris and Naraya Sandala. The Argosy regrets its error and apologizes for any inconvenience caused.
Sackville’s preteen theatre troupe, the Drama Queenz, will be staging their original musical, “All Bottled Up,” with their two adult collaborators, Magali Charron and Vincent Cacchione, on Dec. 6-7 at the Marshlight theatre. There will be a 2 p.m. matinee and a 7 p.m. evening show both days. The musical follows a war between viruses and probiotics inside an unwashed water bottle. The main concept behind the production, according to actor, Elsie McLaughlin, is “don’t do wars.” Virus Villain Alaska Cachionne, daughter of Charron and Cacchione, says “get ready for the best show of your life!”
The Drama Queenz made their debut in the summer of 2023 at Sappyfest, and have been performing ever since. The troupe is formed by a group of pre-teens who meet once a week to rehearse and form their production at the Marshlight Theatre. This past August, they had a week-long workshop to help develop their skills and characters, which Alaska Cacchione says “was really cool.”
Charron, an artist and musician, and Vincent Cacchione, a singer-songwriter of the band Caged Animals, collaborate with the troupe to create and prepare the musical. Cacchione comments “I’m not so sure this has been done all that much, we created an original musical with all these little kids.” The “kids” in question, provided not only their acting skills, but also collaborated on the concepts behind their characters, through what they learned in previous workshops and productions. Actor Cachionne, and child of Charron and Vincent Cacchione, used the previous production, “A Beep In Time and Chips! The Musical,” as a jumping off point, saying “I kind of wanted to be conceited this play, last play I was really nice, and I was cool, and I was smart” they highlight their new character as “the opposite of what I [played] last year. So, I am a virus villain now, I am a virus villain who is conceited.” For Cacchione, the goal of the upcoming production is to “captivate the audience and really make a great play.”
Moya Craik, who is General of the Probiotics, describes coming up with the musical as a collective process of throwing “a whole bunch of random ideas around, and then we come up with something.” Each actor developed their own characters, choreography, and helped develop the lyrics of the original soundtrack. According to actor Violet Haley, the group “[decided] on some fun lyrics and rhymes and stuff and [Charron and Cacchione] sort of put it together.” McLaughlin, who plays a virus in the show, is looking forward to performing a monologue about what they describe as “revenge and stuff.” McLaughlin highlights they have been a villain in their past two productions, elaborating that playing a villainous character is “fun and funny” so they were eager to do it again.
According to actor Macy Morris, who is playing a Circus Alien in the musical, there is a lot going on, but “a lot of the times we only have like a couple of scenes so sometimes we sit in the back and just like quietly whisper.” Newcomers to Drama Queenz, Haley and Naraya Sandala, came up with the idea to perform as Circus Aliens in the upcoming production. Haley explains, “everyone was like probiotics or viruses and we were like… aliens.” The idea solves a logistical issue, with Sandala highlighting that “we sort of wanted to come in in the middle of the play so we decided we’d be aliens.”
The Drama Queenz troupe are confident in their ability to deliver a great performance to Marshlight audiences. The performing Cacchione assured the troupe has “practiced a lot” and is ready to hit the stage. Craik says “I don’t have stage fright.” At the end of the interview, yells of “come to our show!” and “we’re legends,” brought Sandala’s words to mind: “make sure you cherish the chaos.”
Tickets to “All Bottled Up” sell for 15 dollars each on the Marshlight Theatre website: https://marshlight.ca/2025/09/drama-queenz/