Freaky Friday meets Glee meets High School Musical is how director Cara Tench describes the plot of Changing Minds, which is making its Canadian debut at next week's Vancouver Fringe Festival.
The musical centres around a high school, with popular surfer dude Kyle Fairbanks and bookworm Natalie Watson magically switching brains. The mind game has Natalie wondering if she'll win a scholarship and Kyle questioning if "Natalie" will dump his stuck-up girlfriend.
In the nerdy camp is Port Moody actor Danica Kobayashi, who plays Natalie's friend, Gretchen.
Kobayashi has auditioned for previous Awkward Stage Production shows and Changing Minds is her first role with the company. "We've always had our eye on her and we're pleased to have her this year," Tench said.
She added, "We are always at Awkward Stage looking for ways to introduce new and interesting shows that work with the group of youth that we have available to us."
The cast for Changing Minds is made up 15- to 22-year-olds, with Dylan Cowan and Hana Decolongon taking on the lead characters of Kyle and Natalie.
Written by Bret Simmons and David Howard, the show that premiered in Oregon in 2011 "is really fun and very family friendly," said Tench, who has directed three past VFF productions for Awkward.
"It's silly and thought-provoking in that it's good to know what it's like to walk for a while in someone else's shoes - or, in this case, be in someone else's mind," Tench said.
Changing Minds has eight performances for VFF at the Firehall Arts Centre (280 East Cordova St., Vancouver), starting Sept. 7.
jwarren@tricitynews.com
