Meet the DPRCA cast of Oklahoma, part 2

In this second installment, meet three more new faces on the DPRCA stage this summer: Elijah O'Sullivan, Kellie Nolan and Sandy Pifer.

Elijah O'Sullivan plays the lovable (yet sometimes overly-confident) Curly McLain. Elijah comes to New Rockford having just finished his third year at NDSU, working towards a degree in Vocal Music Education. He first found a love for music in his senior year of high school as Sky Masterson in Guys and Dolls, and decided that pursuing music was his calling! He has been heavily involved in the performing arts at NDSU, including the NDSU Concert Choir, Madrigal Singers, BisonArts and opera. On the stage, Elijah has most recently performed in NDSU's productions of La Nozze di Figaro, L'enfant et les sortiléges and Children of Eden. He has also sung in dozens of choir concerts and vocal competitions.

Kellie Nolan, who plays Gertie Cummings, was born and raised in Bloomington, Ill., where her passion for theatre began as a young girl.She decided to pursue that passion and received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Musical Theatre from Western Illinois University in December 2016. Since graduating, she has done several tours with Prairie Fire Children's Theatre and the Bound for Broadway Cabaret in New York City.

She currently resides in Minneapolis, where she is regularly auditioning and working as an infant teacher at a daycare. Along with playing Gertie, Kellie is also your lighting designer for Oklahoma! and will be directing the Dakota Spark Kids Camp in August. Check out more from Kellie at kellienolan.com or follow her on instagram @kellieannenolan.

Playing the role of Kate is Sandy Pifer. Sandy teaches Family and Consumer Science in Fessenden and lives with her cat and bird. Her love of theatre started with her Aunt Kelly, who she always admired. She saw her first play when she was in fifth grade; she thought her aunt was cheating on her uncle because she kissed someone on stage!

After that, Sandy figured out how theatre worked. She wrote her own play in sixth grade, and she now advises the Harvey-Wells County One-Act Play team during the school year. She was involved in the theatre program all through high school in her hometown of Larimore and even directed her own production her senior year. She took a few theatre classes at UND before transferring to NDSU, but never had the courage to audition for more productions. It was only after her three years of teaching and working for weeks with the music teacher at the school that she gained the confidence to audition for community theater and was ecstatic to be offered this part in Oklahoma!

Sandy's love of theatre has been reignited this summer and she looks forward to more opportunities to get involved. She wants to let her students know that they need to "just go for it" and never be scared to ask for help.

Next week, we'll feature the more familiar faces on stage, or those who have performed in other DPRCA productions in recent years. In the final week we'll take note of those who "grew up" with theatre through DPRCA's youth programming.

Oklahoma! runs each Wednesday through Sunday until Aug. 11. Tickets are available by phone at (701) 947-2174 or online at http://www.dprca.com