Students transform Bel Aire into chocolate factory for ‘Willy Wonka’ spring play

Bel Aire Elementary School students will transport audiences to a world of pure imagination in their upcoming production of “Willy Wonka Jr.”

More than 150 students across two casts — Chocolate and Vanilla — will perform six stagings of the show, based on Roald Dahl’s beloved 1964 novel “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” March 18-22.

It tells the story of eccentric chocolatier Willy Wonka, who hides five golden tickets in his candy bars, offering those who find them the chance to tour his secret chocolate factory and receive a lifetime supply of candy. The winners — spoiled Veruca Salt, gluttonous Augustus Gloop, rude gum-chewer Violet Beauregarde, TV-obsessed Mike Teavee and the good-natured Charlie Bucket — accompany Wonka and his crew of Oompa Loompas through the fantastical factory, where they encounter a chocolate river, fizzy lifting drinks and everlasting gobstoppers. Each stop at the factory turns out to be a test, eliminating the children who don’t follow Wonka’s rules.

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