With over two-dozen talented tykes and teens singing and dancing their hearts out, Matilda The Musical is sure to be packing them in during its three-week run at on Whittier Community Theatre stage.

A remarkably assured Audrey Moore alternates with Oona Murphy in the title role as Matilda Wormwood, born to parents who don’t deserve a child as brilliant as the one they’ve been unfairly blessed with.

Her peroxide-blonde mother (Ashley Montgomery) is such a dolt that even nine months pregnant she’s convinced she’s just “fat” and her green-haired hubby (Trevor Murphy) is no less of a nitwit, blissfully clueless that his second-born is a girl.

Fortunately for our plucky young heroine, a love for books not shared by her telly-obsessed family (completed by Lucas Del Raso’s simpleton older brother Michael) helps make Matilda’s away-from-home life bearable, as do an eclectic band of classmates, a helpful librarian (Valerie Jasso as Mrs. Phelps), and above all World’s Greatest Teacher Miss Jennifer Honey (Faith Perez).

 Considerably less agreeable is the ever looming presence of punishment-loving, child-abhorring headmistress Miss Agatha Trunchbull (Eric J. Hindley), bent on making her pint-sized charges’ lives a living hell.

Along the way, book writer Dennis Kelly tags on his own rather unnecessary subplot involving the Russian mafia and a rather convoluted original fairy tale which Matilda recounts in weekly installments to Mrs. Phelps, though on the plus side, the former does inspire a wacky eleventh-hour twist while the latter gives the musical a powerful emotional coda.

As for Matilda’s telekinetic powers (Oops! Was that a spoiler?), they occur so much later here than they do in Danny DeVito’s Americanized 1996 screen adaptation (one of my all-time faves) that movie fans may find themselves a bit let down by how little a part they play in Matilda The Musical.

 Fortunately, composer-lyricist Tim Minchin has written one catchy, melodic song after another to accompany Matilda on her journey towards self-discovery and self-reliance.

All of this adds up to a musical that may not be perfect (although it is a heck of a lot more fun than its 2022 movie adaptation that pretty much excised all the show’s delightful silliness), but keeps an audience-of-all-ages entertained despite its hefty two-hours-and-forty-five-minute running time.

It also gives not one but two casts of preteen leads (the Miracle Cast reviewed here alternating with the Revolting Cast) the chance to show off just how many budding triple-threats there are in Whittier and its environs.

Under Paula Hunter’s able direction, a captivating Moore proves you don’t have to be a grownup to command a stage, and the same can be said for classmates Bruce (Dale Jayden De Castro-Mirales), Lavender (Kara Shen), Amanda (Madison Gaetos), Nigel (Luke Mendoza), Eric (Marcus Valenzuela), Alice (Haven Doench), Hortensia (Samantha Batulan), and Tommy (Subhan Clemente).

Adult performers give the kids some pretty stiff competition where entertaining an audience is concerned.

Hindley is a mammothly-proportioned hoot as the my-way-or-the-highway Miss Trunchbull (think Edna Turnblad in monster mode), sniffing out “The Smell Of Perfection” like nobody’s business.

Murphy steals every scene he’s in as the crazed crook Matilda must unfortunately call Dad, and just wait until his “All I Know” brings the house down with its gleeful celebration of all things “telly.”

Perez is delicate-but-determined perfection as Miss Honey, revealing exquisite soprano pipes in “Pathetic” and “This Little Girl,” Montgomery is the wildest and wackiest of self-centered Moms, who brings down the house duetting “Loud” with Michael Ornelas’s devilishly dance-possessed Rudolpho, and Jasso makes for a warm and wonderful Mrs. Phelps.

Choreographer Nora Hunter, meanwhile, brings out the very best in Matilda’s multitude of child performers in production numbers like “When I Grow Up” and “Revolting Children,” and the same can be said for music director Kevin Wiley, who keeps the cast singing on beat to prerecorded tracks from an otherwise empty orchestra pit.

Less successful on opening night was the too often spotty amplification of spoken lines and sung vocals, though this is not the first production I’ve seen in which musical underscoring so drowns out Matilda’s tragic tale of an Escapologist (Kennon Wolfe, who doubles as Sergei) in love with a beautiful Acrobat (Ava Bolster-Hunter) that I could only make out about 20% of what Moore’s Matilda had to say.

Completing the adult cast are Alex Hunter (very funny as the Wormwood family MD), Luna Clair (Parent), and Roman Guerrero, Dolf Ramos, and J. Valles in a trio of zany cameos each, along with “Big Kids” Faith Branam, Martia Egarton, Samantha Hernandez, Kenna Holub, Noreen Jimenez, Logan Lopez, Sapphire Morningstar, and Fiona Washicko.

Supporting their Miracle Cast counterparts every song-and-dance step of the way as the Kids’ Ensemble are Revolting Cast stars Natalya Camacho, Romeo Cariño, Reed Miramontes, Giada Mojares, Caddie Murphy, the aforementioned Onna Murphy, Kaylie Saldivar, and Jaxon Wolff.

And because it takes a village, a couple dozen or more volunteer designers, techs, and construction crew members have made the very most of a limited budget to ensure that Matilda’s tale of triumphing over childhood adversities inspires young audiences to hang in there when times get tough.

Matilda The Musical is produced by Roxie Lee and Susan Hunter Eiden. Brayden Galante is stage manager.

Few American theaters can boast over a century of existence, let alone still going strong in their 102nd year, and for this reason alone, Whittier Community Theatre deserves major props for this latest in its decades-long series of late-summer musicals.

Matilda The Musical may not get everything right, but I can’t imagine anyone in an audience of family and friends complaining about not getting their money’s worth where hilarity and heart are concerned.

Whittier Community Theatre, The Center Theatre, 7630 S. Washington Ave., Whittier.
www.WhittierCommunityTheatre.org

–Steven Stanley
September 5, 2025
Photos: Ernie Peralta

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Tags: Dennis Kelly, Los Angeles Theater Review, Roald Dahl, Tim Minchin, Whittier Community Theatre