OREM — Hale Center Theatre Orem’s production of Pinkalicious is a Theatre for Young Audiences adaptation of the Pinkalicious story by Victoria Kann. Pinkalicious has also been adapted into a PBS series for children. The musical, with music and lyrics by Victoria Kann, Elizabeth Kann and John Gregor tells the story of a young girl named Pinkalicious Pinkerton who is, you guessed it, obsessed with the color maroon. Ahem. Pink. She consumes so much pink food that she begins to turn pink and must face the nemesis of green food to avoid having the world’s worst case of Pinkititis. Yikes!
I was thrilled by the lighting design for this production. While the HCTO arena stage was flooded with pink light upon the show’s opening, designer Ryan Fallis did an excellent job breaking up the flood of pink with textured gobos, colorful scenic changes and tints of pink that helped tell the emotional story of the characters throughout the production.
Similarly excellent work came from costume designer Lexi Goldsberry. Each character looked right out of a children’s book with crisp and character defining costumes for each player. I loved the ensemble players who were at various times, butterflies, cupcakes, a bird and a doctor. The one curious choice in the design to me was having Pinkalicious wearing black shoes and not pink ones, but it didn’t impact another delightful element of the production.
The choreography from Kelsey Phillips was rigorous and playful. Every scene felt like a show stopping jazz number with intricate formations, bumblebee like paths and high paced dance that pushed the performers hard. They did an excellent job performing the dancing, but at times sounded winded due to its intense nature.
The script played well, and director Lisa Hall did a nice job finding fun ways to keep physical energy high and engaging. Sometimes ironic physicality like Pinkalicious climbing on a chair to reach a cupcake that was clearly within her grasp without that aid was fun. At other times, the tug of war from actors pulling on one another was delightfully cartoony. At times, it felt like jokes played more to the adults than the children, but the cast had a great grasp of that comedy.
Where I felt some disappointment was in the overall approach to the character of Pinkalicious. Like so many child protagonists, the text seemed to make Pinkalicious curious and aloof. When she would state that things were to be a certain way, I’d have loved to see Hailey Bennet Sundwall infuse an inherent goodness to the character that would have played to her ignorance well. Instead, often Sundwall delivered lines with a sullen, entitled tone that made Pinkalicious appear to be a moody teen rather than a snack enticed child. Even her character arc seemed like a resignation to accepting greens, rather than genuine apprehension.
I had similar concerns about the caricatured Pinkerton parents played by Megan Rudd and Scott Hendrickson. It was clear that the story was about their ignoring their other child to deal with a difficult Pinkalicious, but the characters felt like the parents of Timmy Turner in the Fairly Odd Parents rather than their deeper character arcs that lived in the story.
One of the challenges for actors working with a TYA script is discovering the authentic sides of the characters, rather than playing to tropes. The leading actor I found to be most successful at this was Braden Johnsten, whose wilting through the play as he’s terrorized by his sister was sweet and sad while also being comedic in its exaggerated nature. Johnston found what was true about the character and played with the struggle of being an overlooked child excellently. Without this balance, children don’t connect to the characters and adults don’t care about the stakes involving them. The comedy and energy was often there with jokes that played to adult sensibilities, but the acting was otherwise a touch superficial.
Pinkalicious is a bright and lighthearted musical that sparks a wonderful connection to literacy for children. The story does a lovely job of destigmatizing colors as being gendered, and explores dynamic themes of growth through playful extremes. It tells a story children can relate to, and its limited run finishes soon as HCTO prepares to move into their final production before transforming into the Ruth in 2025.
