The immortal story of ‘Little Women’ plays out in song

Shirlanna Shoop wears the pants in this family. 

As Jo March in The Non-Stop Players production of “Little Women,” which closes this Saturday at the Actor’s Cabaret of Eugene, Shoop is the show’s dramatic and musical anchor. It’s also a literal distinction: Shoop is also the only woman on stage who wears pants.

In the musical adaptation of the Louisa May Alcott classic about the lives of the four March sisters Meg, Jo, Amy and Beth in Civil War-era Massachusetts, Jo — Alcott’s stand-in — is ever-present on stage.

As Meg falls in love, impish Amy matures with time and sweet Beth accepts her fate, their stories are sold in songs, including Shoop more often than not. (Of 22 songs in the musical, only eight of them don’t feature Jo as a singing character. Of those eight, she’s the person being sung to in four.) 

Shoop, 29, is the production’s standout vocalist and performer, with sharp comedic timing, deft acting chops and a charming presence as Jo, even with a slight cold during last Friday night’s performance. The skill has been well-honed: Shoop has a bachelor’s degree in vocal performance from the University of Oregon and is a vocal instructor at The Shedd Institute, outside of her day job managing Roaring Rapids Pizza.

“There’s, I’d say, maybe 10 minutes in total of the entire show that I’m off-stage,” she said. “That’s probably even too long.”

Though Jo controls much of the narrative, the task of embodying each of the March sisters, who have achieved literary immortality since the initial 1868 publication of the first installment of “Little Women,” means the whole ensemble must step into characters that are carrying generations of adaptations and fan expectations. 

Pants for Jo, a wig and a 12-year-old voice for Amy 

Jo’s pants are more than just an anachronistic costume choice for a tomboy. They’re a nod to the burgeoning queer scholarship reexamining Alcott’s identity as a transgender man. Alcott preferred to go by “Lou” instead of Louisa (similar to Jo being an androgynous nickname for Josephine), bemoaned not being born as a man and was recognized as closer to a man by her loved ones. 

“Jo doesn’t conform to society standards,” Shoop said. “That’s a big running theme for her, and what drives her to be like, ‘I’m going to do these things. I’m task-oriented. I relate more to being a man in this society than I do to the female standards.’ The pants showcase that in a visible way.”

Amy, the second-youngest March sister and the one with a tempestuous personality, is particularly “impish,” said actress Mazie Guittard. She has a standout costume choice of her own: an “Oh, Mary”-pedigree bratty curl wig for the first act. Those Victorian doll curls complement Guittard’s pronounced pout when things don’t go Amy’s way and, of chief importance, the high-pitched lilt of a believable 12-year-old. 

While Amy has some prominent singing moments, Guittard said the real musical challenge came in maintaining that speaking voice consistently before switching to a believably matured Amy voice for the second act. 

“It was a bit of a process of experimentation, submitting myself to this process of vulnerability,” she said. I had to be childlike, remove all of those things that I had built up for myself. That was the more musical side, even though it wasn’t really singing, it was conducting my voice that way.”

Meg and Beth, calmer counterparts

Remaining March sisters Meg and Beth are the mellow ones, beloved but much less central to the pared-down musical narrative.

Meg is played by Ruby Boland. She has a comparatively smaller part of the story than the other sisters, a romantic who is determined to fall in love and does so after an early social debut. But Boland, 20, plays Meg’s knowing, intentional swooning with gung-ho humor.

Boland, who will be moving away from Eugene in a few months to attend cosmetology school, has loved “Little Women” — and Meg March in particular — for years. She reached out to Karen Olsen, the founder of The Non-Stop Players and the director of the musical, after hearing she was in need of a Meg after another actress dropped out. 

“Meg has always been really important to me. Her biggest dreams and aspirations are to have a family and get married and fall in love and like, do all those different things,” she said. “A big part of her story is that she kind of feels a little misunderstood about the dreams that she has compared to other people wanting to do less traditional things.”

Beth is played by 19-year-old UO freshman Loralee Van Londen (who, in an appropriate “Little Women” twist, was not available to be in the in-person group interview, and instead called in to talk about her role). Beth is the youngest March sister, and (spoilers for a piece of media that’s more than 150 years old, so at this point it should go without saying) dies of scarlet fever in her youth. 

For Van Londen, playing Beth means acting and singing out the goodbye of a famous, extended fatal illness without slipping into melodrama. 

“As much as there might be a temptation sometimes to fall back on kind of like acting habits of (wanting) the audience to know that this is sad. They know,” she said. “The story is already built up so beautifully — thank you, Louisa May Alcott.”

For Shoop, her scene partner for most of the play, the description is simpler, particularly in the tearjerker song “Some Things Are Meant to Be.”

“Loralee does a great job of being encouraging, but also sad and dying,” Shoop said. 

How to see ‘Little Women’

There are two performances remaining for the Non-Stop Players’ production of “Little Women,” at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, May 15, and Saturday, May 16. The musical is being performed at the Actors Cabaret of Eugene, 996 Willamette St.

Tickets are available online, ranging in price from $21 to $59 based on seat choice and the option of dinner before the show. Tickets will also be available at the door.