Will she fly? Check out CYT Baton Rouge’s production of ‘Mary Poppins’ to find out

The big question when any theater company announces a staging of “Mary Poppins”: Is Mary going to fly?

“Yes,” Jeff Elliott said. “And Bert will, too.”

Elliott is director of Christian Youth Theatre Baton Rouge’s production of Disney’s classic musical about a magical nanny who changes a family’s lives.

The production opens Thursday, May 23, in LSU’s Shaver Theatre in the Music and Dramatic Arts Building on Dalrymple Drive.

The story hasn’t changed, but that’s the great thing about “Mary Poppins,” the nanny who’s practically perfect in every way. She flies into London with the wind, guided by her trusty umbrella, and lands on the Banks family’s doorstep.

Then she immediately begins repairing the family’s dysfunction “in the most delightful way.”

That’s a line from “A Spoonful of Sugar,” which joins  “Chim Chim Cheree” and, of course, “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” in the lineup of the musical’s popular numbers.

With 90 cast members and a supersized set, this show is big, and the task of pulling it all together falls to Elliott. But he’s not doing it by himself.

“Our artistic team consists of a director, assistant director, music director and choreography, and each of them takes that load,” Elliott said. “As the director, I go through the show, and I lean very heavily on the talented artistic team that we have. You have to trust your team, and you really have to communicate well.”

He smiles.

“We also pray a lot,” he said.

Elliott’s prayers have become more urgent as the company moves from its rehearsal space at Goodwood Community Church to the Shaver stage, where Mary and Bert will test-fly for the first time.

Wires will be attached to Breanne Arnold, who plays Mary, and Nic Elliott, playing Bert. Both have been working out to keep their core and back muscles strong for their stage flights.

That’s the trick to it all — keeping your muscles strong to balance out the wires.

“I’m a little nervous,” Arnold said. “But this has been a dream of mine.”

“Mary Poppins” is based on Disney’s 1964 film starring Julie Andrews in the lead role and Dick Van Dyke as the happy-go-lucky man of all trades, Bert. It premiered on London’s West End in December 2004 and made its Broadway debut in November 2006.

The focal point is the Banks family in early 20th century London. Their workaholic father is trying to advance his career at the bank, while his political activist wife’s main concern is lobbying for women’s voting rights.

Meanwhile, their children, Jane and Michael, are void of their parents’ attention. So, Mary steps in to fix it. That is, she’s there until the wind changes.

And with her comes Bert, who helps introduce the children to a different way of seeing the world.

“I was more familiar with the movie, and the musical is a little different,” said 18-year-old homeschool senior Nic Elliott, whose father is the director. “I wasn’t sure how Bert would be in the musical, but I knew it would be a fun role to play. I’d seen some clips from the stage show and it just seemed so magical. It’s been an honor, and it’s such a cool role.”

Playing Bert has been magical, and Nic Elliott started working to be in top shape for the role before rehearsals began.

In the show, Bert does a lot of dancing, which borders on acrobatics. Actually, Mary does a lot of dancing, too, which is why Arnold is now sustaining her plank time to three minutes.

“I started working out a month or two before auditions, because my heart was dead set on the role of Mary Poppins,” she said. “For me, she’s special because of the lessons she teaches. Like for me, I love teaching and working with children, and that’s probably what I’m going to do when I’m older. So getting to do that in a show is so special to me, because I get to work with kids already in the show and get to know them and also just teach them so many lessons — valuable lessons at that.”

But there’s also a lot of fun in the lessons shared by Mary Poppins. In her world, it’s possible to jump into one of Bert’s sidewalk chalk drawings to race carousel horses. And when something seems sad or hopeless, just one word, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, instantly makes everything better.

And in the end, there’s nothing like flying a kite to bring a family together. 

“‘Mary Poppins’ is a story about Mary and the children, but there’s yet another story within the show about a family that’s broken apart,” Elliott said. “That Mary Poppins flies in and sets her heart on helping this family and unites them as they never have been before strikes a lot of chords with a lot of homes. It’s a desire to be a family that is knit together in such a way, so it touches a lot of hearts in a lot of different ways.”

‘MARY POPPINS’

7 p.m. Thursday, May 23, and Friday, May 24; 1 p.m. and 6 p.m. Saturday, May 25; and 3 p.m. Sunday, May 26

LSU’s Shaver Theatre in the Music and Dramatic Arts Building, Dalrymple Drive

$19, adults; $16, children age 12 and younger. Tickets for groups of 15 or more are $16. All tickets are $22 at the door.