(L to R: Sarah Lasko as Lisa, Emily Kester as Steffie, Justine Moral as Trudy, and Lauren Williams as Lottie). Photo provided by Imagination Stage.
Double the fun is guaranteed at Imagination Stage’s production of Double Trouble (AKA The Parent Trap). In this musical based on Erich Kastner’s 1949 novel Lottie & Lisa, adapted by David S. Craig, music by Marc Schubring and directed by Kathryn Chase Bryer, two young unexpecting girls meet for the first time at summer camp and get the biggest surprise of their 10-year-old lives! They are twin sisters!
Initially, Lisa and Lottie, not knowing they are twins, quarrel because Lisa and her friends think Lottie is trying to copy Lisa. Lisa gets angry and Lottie gets more reserved until Lottie can’t take the teasing anymore and they start to fight. Eventually, after discovering they each share a birthday and after putting a few more pieces together (such as the fact that one lives with just a mother and the other lives just with a father), they come to the conclusion that they must be twins.
…great songs and an updated, relatable attitude…
The girls quickly hatch a plan to secretly switch places when camp ends, with Lisa traveling back to the city pretending to be Lottie, and Lottie traveling back to the suburbs instead of Lisa. This way, they can experience what it is like for Lottie to have a father (played by Jamie Smithson) and Lisa to have a mother (Amaree Cluff). After becoming fast friends, and after some very catching songs, they teach each other about their lives at home and begin their adventure as switched twins.
At first it is all awe-inspiring and fun to live the life of the other twin and to get to know the parent they never had. (The father is engaged to another woman, played by Shanta Parasuraman.) But soon their behavioral differences are too great to explain away, and their parents start to worry. Again, through great songs, engaging interactions and a dramatic twist, the girls find their happy ending.
Sarah Lasko plays Lisa, and she is adorable. Her enjoyment in portraying a 10-year-old girl is infectious.In the song, “Who is That Girl,” sung by Lisa with her 2 best summer camp friends, Trudy (Justine Moral) and Steffie (Emily Kester), the girls reminded me instantly of my 11-year-old with their age-appropriate silliness.
Lauren Williams as Lottie is the more reserved twin. She vows to remain strong when she decides not to let the other girls bother her and sings about how she is “Completely Different.” Williams is also very convincing as a more sensitive, serious young girl, and she has a sweet singing voice.
Misha Kachman is the Scenic Designer, and his set is everything I expect to see in a summer camp cabin: the rustic wood walls, the bunk beds and the artwork throughout. When the twins go home, one side of the stage is a small apartment and the other becomes a larger well-appointed home — ach with different looks but blended in color pallet. Jason Arnold’s lighting design, Christopher Baine’s sound design and Lauren Chilton’s props design also aided in the set changes from a camp in the woods to city and suburban homes
This is the first time this adaptation of Double Trouble has been brought to the stage, and it’s a good one. This production brings great songs and an updated, relatable attitude to a story written way before most of us were ever 10 years old.
Running Time: 90 minutes, without an intermission.
Double Trouble (AKA The Parent Trap) is running through August 14, 2015 at Imagination Stage – 4908 Auburn Avenue, in Bethesda, MD. For tickets call (301) 280-1660, or click here.
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