First-year MHCC student Ezra Vervin reveals her character and lead as Pinocchio

Pinocchio was never just a moral lesson about the dangers of lying.

Its appeal ran deeper, and the upcoming Mt. Hood Children’s Theatre production is not just a rework of the same old story, notes Ezra Vervin, 24, the actress who plays the lead role and plans to bring the classic story and character to life.

When interviewed, Vervin was suffering through a cold and jokingly admitted that if she could keep the cold for the effect it had on her voice, she would. This is because she’s a female college student at Mt. Hood playing a young boy, a wooden one at that.

This is not really a big challenge for the veteran performer, though, who started acting at her high school in Maryland and has stuck with it ever since.

It is Vervin’s dedication to acting that brought her to Mt. Hood in the first place. After leaving a four-year school in Maryland and scouting college after college, including a year in Arizona, she came to MHCC. “The faculty here seemed more involved than any other college I’ve been to. The teachers seemed to be involved and caring … it felt right,” she said.

After staying away from the stage for awhile and focusing on acting in films, her part in the Pinocchio play is a good change of pace for her, she said. “This play kinda reawakened me to why I started acting in the first place and it’s refreshing.” Asked how she prepares for a character like Pinocchio, she said she has pretty much been prepared for the role her entire life: “I think I can relate to his child-like innocence.”

On the nature of the play itself, “the play is kid-friendly without dumbing anything down,” Vervin said. It isn’t just for kids, however, as she and the entire cast are bringing some serious skill, effort, and charisma to an already timeless classic.

Vervin is one of the lucky people to have found their passion in acting.

“It would be so easy for me to get my degree and be a teacher but I couldn’t, I have to do what I love,” she said. She really likes “being someone else and being outlandish and being out there and doing something that people can’t, but we can, because we’re actors.”

There are a lot of versions of the Pinocchio story, including the Disney adaptation we all saw as children, but Vervin assured, “the journey is definitely going to bring you in” to the Mt. Hood production. “People know the the story but I think there are slight differences and surprises. I think it’s going to get the audience involved.”

Weekday morning performances of Pinocchio, staged for local schoolchildren, begin on Nov. 5.

The lone public performance is set for 2 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 15 in the College Theater. Cost is $2.