By By JOHN EBY / Dowagiac Daily News
If you wonder how someone finds a career with Madcap, a Cincinnati theater known for giant puppets, consider that Brian Edgecomb made his dramatic debut playing Gingivitis.
That was in second grade in West Palm Beach, Fla., in a show at his elementary school sponsored by the dental hygiene board to promote healthy teeth.
As the youngest of three boys - his older brothers include a high school vice principal and a probation officer - acting proved a good way to attract attention.
Edgecomb, who performed the mathematics-mentioning &#8221Fantastic Fairy Tale Show“; at McKinley Elementary School, has been with Madcap since June.
Math skills the program explores include problem-solving, reasoning and estimation.
His three-stop storytelling adventure incorporates the Brothers Grimm's &#8221Hansel and Gretel“; with third-grade teacher Elaine Bansen co-starring with student Zane Sams in the title roles, Edgecomb swapping his jester's hat for a cackling wicked witch and Ellen Cox morphing into a rusty cage and enveloping Zane in a hug.
Edgecomb stresses audience participation throughout his 50-minute presentation, which also included &#8221The Water of Life“; with a bag of boulders and fourth grader Assad Wilson, third grader Dusty Alsup and first grader Catherine Wirick and &#8221The Wishing Tree,“; which talks thanks to another of his Sybil-sized assortment of personalities.
Between Florida and Ohio, where Edgecomb fulfilled a year-long internship with Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, he studied theater at Indiana's Purdue University, which is renowned for engineering - not acting.
Performing with puppets, he surprises even himself.
Edgecomb sees himself in the next few years establishing himself in &#8221professional regional theater - plays, musicals, that sort of thing. I'm still working toward that. On average, I do five shows a week, Monday through Friday, only for the Midwest area. Madcap shows are all over the country.“;
Indeed, Principal Kay Tularak was disappointed to hear that he would not be coming back in March 2006, when McKinley hosts &#8221Monkey See, Monkey Do,“; animal stories from around the world.
Edgecomb spent all of last week in Michigan, including Detroit a couple of days.
Madcap Puppets, a non-profit touring children's theater company, covers the United States with six troupes performing at theaters, schools, libraries and community venues and reaching almost 500,000 children each year.
At its home base in Ohio, Madcap is the resident children's theater company at the Cincinnati Art Museum as well as at the J.B. Speed Museum in Louisville, Ky.