Dude, it’s, like, ‘Snow White’ but totally gnarlier

Newport Elementary students stage a new take on the Brothers Grimm fairy tale for their winter musical.It may not be a period piece, it may look more like “Lizzie McGuire” than a Grimm’s fairy tale, but the play at Newport Elementary School this week really is a beloved classic.

It just has a few modern twists.

“Val E. Gal Meets the Best on the Beach,” scheduled to have its first full performance Friday evening, tells the story of a long-suffering girl who flees her cruel stepmother and finds herself rescued by the love of her life. It doesn’t take a sharp observer to realize that the play is “Snow White” in modern trappings -- with the magic mirror turned into a walkie-talkie, the poisoned apple converted to a TK Burger, and the word “like” used, like, 21 times in the script.

“For the boys’ audition, you had to do your best surfer voice -- like, ‘Dude, those waves are just pumpin’,’” said sixth-grader Erik Higbie, 11, who plays Val E. Gal’s love interest, Gnarly Dude.

Last September, parent Gail O’Hea began preproduction for Newport Elementary’s annual winter musical. The script she selected was “Snow White,” but after a preliminary read-through, she decided that the story needed a little more spice.

Along with Sara Lunsford, the education director for the neighboring Christ Church by the Sea, O’Hea relocated the tale to Newport Beach circa 2006. At one point, the evil Madame Silicone sends her pool boy -- the huntsman in the fairy tale -- to kill her stepdaughter, under a stiff penalty if he fails. The following dialogue ensues:

Pool boy: “Forgive me, Val, for what I must do. It is Madame’s command and if I disobey, I will spend the rest of my life locked in the cabana.”

Val. E. Gal: “Madame wishes me, like, dead?”

Her life once spared, Val E. Gal takes shelter at Newport Elementary itself, where the students grant her a warm welcome. Since she is an exile, however, the pool boy gives her a stern decree: “You must never return to the valley. Never cross the 405.”

Some of the play’s lingo, O’Hea said, came out of the school’s everyday culture -- particularly the title.

“That’s what we call our kids,” she explained. “We say, ‘You’re the best on the beach.’”

The show, which runs Friday through Sunday in the school’s multipurpose room, features students from every grade level. The cast of the play consists of upper grades only, but first- through third-graders open the show with a rendition of “There’s No Business Like Show Business,” while a group of kindergarteners do a dance number dressed as mice.

The students mostly provided their own costumes, although a few required special treatment. For fifth-grader Maxwell Newsom, who plays the walkie-talkie, Lunsford created a frame made out of a snare drum holder and supported by lacrosse shoulder pads.

Both of the leads, Erik and sixth-grader Amy Rapillo, have acted in Newport Elementary plays before -- Erik in the first grade, when he starred in “Harry Potter,” and Amy in every production for the last five years.

The role of Gnarly Dude, Erik said, proved to be a flattering one. The female characters in the play often swoon over him, with two even fighting for his attention in one scene.

“In the play, I’m kind of on the most-wanted list,” he said. “I’m every girl’s dream.”

So did Amy, 11, enjoy playing his love interest?