OnStage: A new pair of shoes

For Maeve Moynihan, Cinderella is not just a fairy tale. When the young actor was 3, her parents took her to a version of "Cinderella" at the Children's Theatre.

Moynihan does not remember much about the production except that Gerald Drake played the over-the-top stepmother. But that production sparked her interest in becoming an actor.

Now an Edina High School sophomore with many years of acting, singing and dancing under her belt -- including important roles at the Guthrie, the Ordway and elsewhere -- she is returning to her stage home.

Moynihan is playing the title role in "Cinderella" that opens today. And she leads a cast that includes Drake as Lord High Chamberlain.

"This is a dream, really," she said in an interview last week. "It's not just a great story because it has such personal meaning for me. It also has meaning for the audience because 'Cinderella' is really a story of transformation, forgiveness and hope."

Moynihan stars in a "Cinderella" that will be far more British than American.

Children's Theatre artistic director Peter Brosius is drawing on elements of pantomime, which is popular at Christmastime in the British Commonwealth, for this newly commissioned version by John B. Davidson.

The show mixes buffoonery, shtick, slapstick and cross-dressing with audience participation. Dean Holt and Reed Sigmund, two of the company's stalwart physical comedians, play Cinderella's ugly stepsisters.

"One of the things I love about having this panto at the holidays is the mix [of styles] -- the low comedy of the stepsisters with the high beauty of the ball," said Brosius. "There are few styles of theater that can inhabit so many different energies and aesthetics. And Moynihan is a focused, fearless phenom as Cinderella."

Natural talent + work ethic

Those who have worked with Moynihan have been impressed both by her gifts and by the work ethic which she has used to cultivate them.

"She has a natural talent, but what's unique about her is that she's such a great student of her art," said Beverly Claflin, Moynihan's voice teacher, who is also the vocal coach for Edina High School and the music director at Mount Olivet Lutheran Church in Minneapolis. "She has a bottomless hunger to learn, to try things. She shows up prepared and on time. And all of that hard work has already shown itself in what she has done over the last four years."

In that time, Moynihan has performed in such big shows as Minnesota Opera's "Grapes of Wrath" and the premiere of "Little House on the Prairie" at the Guthrie. She has also been onstage at the Illusion Theater. But it is the Children's Theatre, where she took her first class at age 8, that has served as her artistic home. There, she played the spunky title character in "Esperanza Rising." Cinderella is different in that the character may be closest to who she is, Moynihan said.

"She's sweet and innocent and open to the world," she said. "One of the things that I relate to now is her ability to forgive her stepsisters. Even if your sister stole something from you, or your brother teased you, you remember that you love them. We are still family."

For Cinderella, the work that she does is drudgery. But Moynihan likes to work. And she has it cut out for her in this show. "Cinderella" has a daunting run of 76 performances.

"If there's any 16-year-old who can do it, Maeve Moynihan can," Claflin said.

Rohan Preston • 612-673-4390