Kinkaid thespians make new furry friends
Every dog had its day — and 16 shelter animals found “forever homes” — following a performance of “101 Dalmatians” and a puppy and dog adoption April 24 at The Kinkaid School.
The Upper School Children’s Theatre outreach tour also partnered with K-9 Angels Rescue for entertainment and educational visits in April to young patients at the MD Anderson Cancer Center and students at KIPP Sharp, Baker Ripley and Sinclair Elementary schools, said Kinkaid theater director Justin Doran.
“We took some furry friends to the schools we visited,” added Josephine Ganner, an actress and playwright from New York who collaborated with Doran on the “101 Dalmatians” musical.
K-9 Angels Rescue is an organization that rescues and “re-homes” shelter dogs, explained its vice president, Lauren Friedman, a Memorial resident whose daughter, Megan, 19, started a student group, Pets Are Worth Saving (PAWS), at Kinkaid before she graduated last year.
The children’s theater outreach tour “was wonderful exposure for us,” said Friedman.
Ganner added, “We hope we not only entertained, but also enriched the lives of our young audience members through theater education as well as animal care and rescue information.”
The project was eye-opening for Kinkaid students, too.
“We learned that animals have only a 72-hour window of survival at Houston shelters,” explained Morgan Vicknair, 17, a junior who played Cruella DeVille in one of the two rotating casts of 35 students each.
Mia Bonner, also a 17-yearold junior, said, “We taught kids about the overpopulation of dogs and the need for spaying and neutering.
Bonner, who has two dogs – a Goldendoodle and a Maltese
— and played Patch in the show, added, “It’s really important to take care of your pets, love them and don’t let them get lost.”
Among the narrators for the musical were juniors Mary Caroline Scofield and Dean Taylor, both 17, and senior Lovett Shaper, 18.
Shaper, who has a Golden Retriever and a Cocker Spaniel, told audiences how pets provide priceless companionship.
“They always show affection,” said Shaper. “Regardless of how your day went, you come home and they’re excited to see you.”
Scofield enjoyed performing for young fans and “seeing all their faces light up,” especially the cancer patients.
“Maybe we made part of their day look a little better,” she said, adding that, after each show, “We would sign autographs and they were all over us; they were literally everywhere.”
Even children who booed Cruella during the performance and stuck out their tongues at her henchman, Jasper, hugged the actors later, said Mason Mings, 17, a junior who played Jasper.
“It was all silly and fun,” he said.
K-9 Angels Rescue is open on weekends at 5533 Wesleyan at Bissonnet, next to Chuck E. Cheese in the Bering’s shopping center, said Friedman.
“We are not a shelter in the sense that we are not positioned to accept dogs from the public,” she explained. “We personally select our dogs from the greater Houston animal control facilities where healthy, adoptable dogs are destroyed every day simply because they have no home, no family to call their own.
“A dog selected into our rescue program remains in one of our foster care homes until adopted,” said Friedman.
Since forming in 2012, she added, “As of March 8, 2015 ,we have homed and re-homed more than 1,718 dogs.”
For further information and to view dogs up for adoption, visit www.k9angelsrescue.org.