BRAVE

Like many of you, I'd imagine, I applaud Pixar for finally giving audiences a strong female protagonist in Brave, and would've looked forward to the movie itself more had the trailers not been so resoundingly blah. But what I'd forgotten was that several of the animation studio's best outings - Finding Nemo, WALL•E, Toy Story 3 - were also promoted with weak previews, and so it's a pleasure to say that this Scotland-based adventure is one of Pixar's most involving and interesting achievements in years, partly because those generically jokey trailers give you almost no idea of what's actually in store.

While listening to Kelley Hunt perform - the singer/songwriter's joyously smoky, soulful blues vocals a perfect match for her funky and fiery piano skills - it's easy to imagine that the Kansas-based musician never lacked for confidence. As she admits during our recent phone interview, though, she actually did. She just didn't tell anyone.

"When I was about 17, I was in a band with my brother's friends, and these were older guys - like 21 or whatever," says Hunt with a laugh. "I wasn't singing at all; I was just playing these keyboards that they had. And one night we were playing for an event at the college in Emporia, where I grew up, and we were being paid, and the gal that was supposed to sing just did not show up. And it was time to start, and the guys looked at me and just said, 'Oh my God, we hope you can sing.'

"I was pretty much horrified," she continues. "I mean, I knew I could, because I was doing it in school, but never in this kind of setting. So at that moment, I just made a conscious decision: 'I'm going to pretend like I'm all about this, and I'm going to pretend like I'm not scared out of my gourd.' And I just slammed it out for a couple hours, and I remember thinking, 'Well, (a) nobody here even knows there's anything different, (b) the singer's fired, and (c) I now get paid twice as much.'"

Laughing, Hunt says, "I just stepped into it brazenly and naïvely, and just assumed that it would all work out."

Local audiences have seen married actors Jonathan and Rochelle Schrader appearing opposite one another numerous times over the years: in Oper a@ Augustana's The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado; in the former Green Room Theatre's Into the Woods; and in Quad City Music Guild's Babes in Toyland.

But with Countryside Community Theatre's presentation of The King & I, running June 22 through 30 at Eldridge's North Scott High School, patrons will see the Schraders interact in a way that, on-stage at least, they never have before.

"This is the first time we've actually gotten to play semi-romantically together," says Jonathan, who enacts the titular, short-tempered King of Siam - a role made legendary by Yul Brynner - opposite his wife's stalwart schoolteacher Anna. "I've played her father several times, and I tried to kill her in Babes in Toyland, but ... ."

The scenic design for the Clinton Area Showboat Theatre's Into the Woods is deceptively simple - basically a half-dozen white drop curtains hanging ceiling to floor, with a few stone steps decorating the otherwise bare stage. But don't be fooled: Like a rabbit being pulled from a hat, something truly magical emerges from this production's minimalist-by-necessity façade.