Wild Swan Theater to Perform 'Treasure Island'

Dexter families will get an up-close look at the swashbuckling lives of pirates during the Wild Swan Theater troupe's live-action adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's classic novel Treasure Island.

The performances, which are suitable for children ages 7 to 14, will take place Thursday through Sunday at the Washtenaw Community College Morris Lawrence Building's Towsley Auditorium, 4800 E. Huron River Dr. in Ann Arbor. Tickets for the performances cost $15 for adults and $10 for children in advance and, if available, at the door.

Kathy Pawlicki of Dexter, the theater’s box office manager, will certainly be kept busy—the play is so popular, some performances are already sold out. Theater fans are eager to enjoy the antics of peg-legged pirate Long John Silver and his gang, including Ben Gunn, Blind Pew, Black Dog, Israel Hands, Billy Bones and cabin boy Jim Hawkins, and their search for buried treasure on a Caribbean island.

Performances will be interpreted in sign language and audio description, and backstage “touch” tours are available by prearrangement for the visually impaired.

Ann Arbor actor Jeremy Salvatori, a five-year veteran of the theater who has also acted with the Performance Network Children’s Theatre Network and the Ann Arbor Civic Theatre, will play Hawkins. The role is one of his favorites, he said.

“Playing a 12-year-old kid who is brimming with desire to sail on a ship to the Caribbean to fight pirates off in order to find buried treasure is absolutely, positively awesome," he said.

"It's very refreshing and, in a sense, renewing, to play a kid role—you look out at the world with untainted, innocent, eager eyes. The world is a great big place that is all at once amazing, scary and exciting. I love being able to try and capture that spirit.”

For information on performance times or to purchase tickets, call 734-995-0530 or visit wildswantheater.org.