Musicals keep bringing family together

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A Millard couple, who met while doing Ralston Community Theatre and married four years later, now have two daughters cast in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “The King and I” at — where else — the Ralston Community Theatre.

The show opens July 8 for a three-weekend run during Ralston's 33rd year of summer musicals.

Michael Reilly started appearing in Ralston shows around 1990, said his wife, Shelly.

“He was 13 and I was 11 when I saw him in ‘Bye Bye Birdie,'” Shelly remembered. “He played Randolph, the MacAfee son, and I thought he was really cute.”

Shelly began appearing in Ralston shows in 1992 with “Oliver,” but by then Mike had traded theater for summer baseball. Mike's brother, Tommy, was in the cast, though, and his mother, Barb, was the rehearsal accompanist.

Finally, in 1997, Mike and Shelly both were cast in the chorus of “Fiddler on the Roof.”

“He was still so cute,” she said. “But he was very shy, and I could never get him to talk to me.”

So, at a theater picnic, she threw sand at him. That made Mike angry, but it got him talking.

“Turned out he didn't know my name,” she said. “So I asked him out on a first date to Shakespeare on the Green. And the rest, as they say, is history.”

They dated through college at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and married in 2001. After jobs in Sioux Falls, S.D., and Lincoln, they moved back to the Omaha area in 2003. Shelly is a district manager for Victoria's Secret, and Michael is a personal trainer and paraprofessional at Cather Elementary.

Last summer their older daughter, Isabella, appeared with Papillion-La Vista Community Theatre as the youngest von Trapp daughter in “The Sound of Music.” Then Shelly saw that Ralston was doing “The King and I,” a show she appeared in at Ralston 17 years ago.

“So the girls just had to do this show,” she said. “Anna just turned 6, and it's her first show. She's the youngest cast member. Isabella is almost 9.”

Both girls, who attend Reagan Elementary School in Millard, play the king's children.

“It's probably been more fun watching them do it than I ever had,” Shelly said. “It really brought me back, reminding me what's important in life. This is a family thing, and family comes first.”

Director Todd Uhrmacher said it's heartwarming to lead the children of actors he's known since they were kids.

“Makes you think you've done something right when they keep coming back,” he said. “On the other hand, I'm starting to feel old.”

Contact the writer:

402-444-1269, bob.fischbach@owh.com

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