In her first appearance on the Litchfield stage, Caroline Cronk finds herself in an unfamiliar position — playing a lead role.
“It’s a little bit of a different experience,” Cronk said during a break in a recent rehearsal for Litchfield Community Theatre’s production of “Cinderella.” “I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. But Tim (Nelson, the director) has been really nice and easy to work with.”
Cronk is among the many actors, each with their own stories, who will take the stage this week as LCT's production of "Cinderella" opens for a four-show run at Bernie Aaker Auditorium.
Cronk graduated in 2021 from Dassel-Cokato High School, where she participated in a wide variety of one-act plays and musicals, both on stage and in technical roles. Prior to that, she was in five Prairie Fire Children’s Theater touring productions when the troupe visited Dassel in her youth. She also has participated in Dassel-Cokato Community Theatre and with the FungusAmongus Players of Dassel-Cokato.
That resume helped Cronk earn a theater scholarship at Concordia College in Moorhead.
She’s still not certain about a theater degree — Cronk said she’s also interested in computer science — but she enjoys the atmosphere enough that no matter what she pursues as a career, she’s bound to stay active in theater in some way in the future.
She appeared as one of the street kids in a D-C production of “Oliver!” and also was in “Fiddler on the Roof.” She also ran sound for one high school production and was stage manager for another. As a senior, Cronk was the costumer for the school’s one-act play.
“That was really special,” she said.
But being a lead — playing Cinderella — that was something Cronk never had the opportunity to do. So when she learned Litchfield Community Theatre’s plans to stage the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, Cronk decided she needed to make the short trip west on U.S. Highway 12 to at least audition.
“I really love the songs of Rodgers and Hammerstein,” she said. “And Cinderella is a bucket list role for me. I did this show in high school and was one of the stepsisters, and I thought, ‘Hey, I’ll shoot my shot, see if I can get Cinderella, and here I am.”
In addition to working with Nelson, Cronk added, with a bit of theatric irony, that she’s enjoyed teaming up onstage with Mila Hanson and Rachelle Steuck — Portia and Joy, respectively, Cinderella’s stepsisters.
“I’m very fond of my stepsisters,” Cronk said with a smile. “It has been a lot of fun.”
Back on the stage
Other members of the “Cinderella” cast are enjoying a return to Litchfield theater, or their own debuts, including Rick Beecroft, who plays the King, and Sylvia Nelson, cast as the Fairy Godmother.
A Litchfield native and LHS graduate, Beecroft performed in one high school production, then was in “The Sound of Music” and “The Foreigner” in the early 1990s before “life” got in the way, he says. He went to college, joined the Navy, then moved around a bit before eventually returning to his hometown.
The past three-plus years, he’s worked as a regional manager for Dooley’s Petroleum, overseeing convenience stores in Litchfield. It has allowed him more time in town — and more time to become re-involved in theater.
Beecroft was part of the cast for LCT’s winter play, “The Big Five-Oh!” And now, he’s in “Cinderella.”
“It’s a lot of fun putting the project, or projects, together,” he said of theater. “Working with different cast members, it’s really just a lot of fun. It’s an escape from reality. It’s an opportunity to be somebody different than what you have to be every day.”
Being in a musical offers different challenges than acting in a play like “The Big Five-Oh!” Beecroft said. Namely, all that singing.
“I haven’t really sang a lot,” he said. “I joked with Tim (Nelson) earlier. He says, “well, how’d you learn how to sing?’ I said, ‘The shower has no secrets.’ That’s pretty much it, you know?”
California to Litchfield
Sylvia Nelson grew up in California. She’d never been to Litchfield before last summer, when she came to visit her friends Tim Nelson and Mary Murphy-Nelson.
She enjoyed her visit so much, she moved here.
Really.
And though she never had visited Litchfield before last summer, Nelson had lived “on” Litchfield — Litchfield Avenue, that is — for years while living in Orange, California.
She had been living in Colorado and had property in California prior to her visit last summer. Through a series of seemingly unlikely coincidences, she visited Litchfield, loved what she saw and the people she met, sold her California property and bought a house here.
“It was kind of wing and a prayer, leap of faith, all of those things,” Nelson said. “It all worked out. It worked out so well. I've just been very content, and that’s, I think, you get to a certain age and you just want to be comfortable in your own skin and with nice people. That’s kind of how it worked out.”
Theater also is one of those things that worked out. Her career includes a variety of stage roles, stretching all the way back to high school.
“This was my fun thing,” she said, explaining that she spent about 40 years as a commercial insurance agent. Her experience includes acting under Tim Nelson’s direction in California. So, it only made sense she might audition for “Cinderella” this summer, her first as a full-time Litchfield resident.
She landed the Fairy Godmother role, which she says she’s had a lot of fun with, even while it has challenged her.
“It’s just getting hard to memorize (lines),” Nelson said with a smile. “Last time I did this show, I did the Queen, and it just, you know, it was easier to memorize her lines. She didn’t have as many. And that was 10 years ago.”
But the past year has been a memorable experience, she said. One that just feels right.
“Downtown Orange, back in the day, it looked so much like Litchfield,” she said. “It just has a comfortable feel to it.”
