Abby Gage (Music Director/Assistant Director)
Abby Gage is a graduate of Magnet Cove High School, where she was an active participant and section leader in Choir. She graduated with Cum Laude honors from Ouachita Baptist University with her Bachelor’s degree in Vocal Music Education. She has been the K-12 Music teacher and Choir director at Poyen School District since graduating from OBU in 2020.
The Poyen Choirs have received excellent ratings at CPA each year under her direction and reached the State Choir Festival in 2024, 2025, and 2026. The Poyen Choir won the 2A State Choir Festival in 2024. She found her passion for Musical Theater after college and has since participated in several musical productions with the Magnet Cove Community Theater. She has acted in 3 shows, and this is her 7th show working as music director. This past year, Abby and her husband Jon welcomed new son Ollie into their family.
Emma Melvin (Lighting Designer)
Emma is currently attending Southern Arkansas University as a senior in Technical Theatre. With a lighting focus, she is honored to be invited to work outside of her own school, especially with the wonderful people of Magnet Cove. This is Emma’s 3rd show as the Unity Stage Lighting Designer.
Gavin “Wally” Wallace (Sound Designer)
Gavin “Wally” Wallace is a Junior Communications and Media/Computer Science double major at Ouachita Baptist University and serves as the Technical Director for the Ouachita Sports Digital Network. Wally loves working behind the scenes, whether it’s in live sports production directing broadcasts, building technical workflows, running replay, and making everything look seamless on screen, or in musical theatre serving as the audio engineer and helping with set design, construction, and technical engineering to bring each production to life.
Wally has been involved with Unity Stage Theatrics since 2022, and this upcoming production will be his eighth show. Wally is passionate about both the storytelling and technical sides of media, and is always looking for ways to improve systems, solve problems, and create something that didn’t exist before. After graduating in May of 2027, Wally plans to pursue a career in broadcast and media technology, focusing on live sports production and technical engineering. His goal is to work in a professional broadcast environment where I can help design and operate advanced production systems, improve workflows, and contribute to high-quality live
broadcasts.
Kelsey Vega (Choreographer)
Kelsey grew up studying, practicing, and competing in classical styles of dance including ballet, tap, jazz, and musical theatre. At the age of 11 she also began exploring hip hop and contemporary styles of dance. As one of the youngest in her division, she completed in Las Vegas, NV at the Venetian were she placed third runner up for International Dancer of the Year against contestants from all over the world. Kelsey signed to an agency and relocated to Los Angeles, CA where she filmed television commercials and furthered her dance training at Millenium Dance Complex under celebrity choreographers including Jabari Odom and Shane Sparks. In 2016 Kelsey began teaching at DanceArts Studio in Hot Springs, AR where she has choreographed countless high placing competitive dances for the 19 and under age group and has won several choreography awards. In 2020 Kelsey launched her own photography business “Kelsey V Photography” where she takes a variety of client photos. Kelsey continues to teach at DanceArts Studio and at National Park College.
Chloe Cofer (Choreographer)
Chloe is a junior BFA musical theatre major studying at Ouachita Baptist University pursuing a professional career performing. She has danced for 18 years, growing up competitively dancing and began doing theatre in high school. Chloe has worked at SDC theme park as a caroler in Branson Missouri and worked at Holiday world theme park in Santa Clause Indiana as an actor and dancer.
Chloe is very passionate about performing, choreography, and pouring into others. She is beyond thankful for these awesome high schoolers in this production and for all their hard work and dedication.
Andy Beck (Creative Director/Director)
Beck, as he is called by so many, is finishing his Twenty second year as an educator and his twelfth year at Magnet Cove. Beck graduated from the University of Central Arkansas in 2003 with a degree in Music Education after transferring from Portland State University. While in Portland, Beck was able to study and hang out with some of the best musicians in the world, such as Dave Barduhn, Larry Zgonc, Chris Bruya, Chuck Bolton, JaTik Clark, and Dr John Richards.
Beck was first bit by the theatre bug in high school when he realized that there were more girls in theatre than guys. So like any boy, he went where the girls were. Beck’s first role was Mr. DePina in “You Can’t Take It With You”. There he learned “If you don’t feel stupid, you ain’t doing it right!” As a theatre kid, Beck has worked on numerous productions for Sandy High School, Sandy Oregon, The Sandy Actors Theatre (SAT), Sandy Oregon, MT. Hood Community College (MHCC), Gresham Oregon, Clackamas Community College (CCC), Oregon City Oregon.
After seeing how many musical theatre kids were roaming the halls at Magnet Cove, Beck took a risk and the music department never looked back. This current production marks the 10th show at Magnet Cove and the 7th show with Unity Stage.
Dennis Kelly
Work for theatre includes Debris, Osama the Hero, After the End, Love and Money, Taking Care of Baby, DNA, Orphans, The Gods Weep, and The Ritual Slaughter of Gorge Mastromas. He has written the book for the new musical of Pinocchio which opened at the National Theatre at the end of 2017, and in 2018 his new play Girls and Boys opened at the Royal Court. His plays have been performed worldwide and to date have been translated into nearly forty languages. For television he co-wrote and co-created Pulling and wrote and created Utopia. For film, he wrote the screenplay for Black Sea, directed by Kevin MacDonald. He also wrote the book for the Olivier and Tony winning Matilda the Musical. In 2010, DNA became a set text on the GCSE English Literature syllabus.
Tim Minchin
Tim is a musician, actor, comedian, writer and director. He’s toured extensively in the US, UK and Australia, performing solo, with bands, and with symphony orchestras. He’s released five DVDs, the most recent recorded with the Heritage Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall. Screen acting credits include Robin Hood Origins (2018), Secret River (2015), and Californication (Season 6 – 2013). Stage acting credits include Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (Sydney Theatre Company) and Jesus Christ Superstar (UK/Australia tours). Tim has written extensively for theatre, and is the composer-lyricist of Matilda the Musical (with Dennis Kelly) and Groundhog Day the Musical (with Danny Rubin).
Roald Dalh
Roald Dahl (1916-1990) was the author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, The BFG and many more of the world’s best-loved children’s stories. He remains one of the world’s greatest storytellers and is celebrated annually by the world’s biggest author-based event, Roald Dahl Day – which is recognised across the globe on 13th September.
His first children’s story, James and the Giant Peach, published in 1961 and was a huge hit. Every subsequent book became a best-seller.
Today, his stories are available in 59 languages and, by a conservative estimate, he has sold more than 250 million books. Many of these stories have also been adapted for stage and screen, including the 1971 film classic Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Wes Anderson’s acclaimed Fantastic Mr Fox, and the Royal Shakespeare Company’s multi-award winning production of Matilda The Musical.