Seven Hopedale youth will be in the MPAC production of Newsies later this month, two of whom play lead roles: Turo Rigdon and Devon Thomson.

Rigdon has been taking classes/doing productions at MPAC since he was 7, which would be 2014. Thomson has been taking classes/doing productions at MPAC for six years.

MPAC has classes after school with a production in the spring, summer week and vacation camps and one big spring show at Milford High School each year. When COVID hit in 2020, they had just cast their spring musical-The Music Man. A few of the cast members stuck it out and Milford TV filmed some of the scenes so that they would have a record of their work.  

In the fall of 2020, MPAC was able to offer monthly productions to students and a core group, including Rigdon. This continued through the spring of 2022. The boys auditioned in March and were very excited to be cast in the lead roles of Jack Kelly (Rigdon) and Davy (Thomson). 

The boys are both doing extremely well at school and both have been recommended to take a full load of honors courses in ninth grade.  They are involved in Chorus and Band at the high school and have participated in The Addams Family last spring, Alice in Wonderland this fall and most recently, The Little Mermaid.

They are best friends/live next door to each other and still maintain a healthy attitude when they audition for roles like this. They also both are counselors during school vacation weeks and the month of July in the summer. 

This Newsies cast is special because it consists mainly of kids ages 10-18 who have been together the last couple of years during the pandemic together at MPAC. They are a tight-knit group who have been fortunate that Carol Devendorf was able to keep MPAC open and continued to hold masked performances even when everything else was taken from them.  

The show also features three fourth-grade girls from Memorial-Abby Rigdon, Corinne Jackson and Lucianna Parente as well two students from BVT-Riley Jackson and Alex Fumia.  

The production is June 17 (7:30pm), June 18 (2 and 7:30pm) and 19 (2pm) at the Milford High School Auditorium. Tickets can be purchased at: https://tinyurl.com/mpacnewsies or by calling 508-473-1684. They can also be purchased at the door.