Playing the title role as the ten-year-old orphan Oliver Twist was eight-year-old Joe Metcalf who was amazingly making his stage debut in the role! Even more amazingly, he showed remarkable poise – even during the show I attended when gremlins kept attacking his microphone. The un-rattled Joe Metcalf didn’t miss a step, and his great voice made up for any technical disturbances.

Joining Oliver with additional notable performances included Mark Guiducci as the charismatic Fagin who teaches Oliver and his other assortment of orphans advanced techniques on how to pick a pocket or two. Erika Jermasek has a gorgeous voice and strong stage presence for Nancy, as does her young counterpart Bet (Brittany LaBelle). Nancy, Bet, Fagin, Oliver, and a supremely charming Artful Dodger (Austin Cesear) team up with a fun and clever gang of orphans in perhaps the show’s centerpiece that has Dodger and Oliver playfully wooing Nancy and Bet in I’d Do Anything for You.

The deep cast includes a dark performance by the cold, cruel Bill Sikes (Josh Elwell) whose reputation and intimidating manner has everyone in town cowering at his presence. Then there are many with much smaller roles who gave memorable performances. Mrs. Cornwall/Mrs. Bumble (Lauren King) is a riot as the buxom and big-bottomed assistant to orphanage tyrant Mr. Bumble (Tom Hatfield) who “shall scream” if Mr. Bumble doesn’t stop flirting with her. The ghoulish-looking Sowerberry funeral parlor family who briefly “adopts” Oliver for a dead-end job are morbidly amusing with the drunken head of the family (Nick Scutti), his dominating wife (Dawn Powell), their bullying but squeamish son (Kyre Wilcox), and his friend Charlotte (Ashley Avan) who lets out a scream of uniquely earsplitting intensity when Oliver lets her bully friend have what’s coming to him.

In the ensemble, the beautiful voices of Megan Cruse and Kylee Danielson, as a rose-seller and milk-seller, start off the lovely Who Will Buy? number. The pickpockets turn in several great scenes including You’ve Got to Pick a Pocket or Two, Be Back Soon, and the above-mentioned I’d Do Anything For You, enhanced by Lindsay Barth with her hysterical expressions throughout. And the orphans and townspeople put together some of the best moments lending their voices and dancing to such numbers as Consider Yourself (at Home) when they welcome Oliver to the big city of London, and later in the tavern with some Oom-Pah-Pah.