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Most of the actors in “The Neverending Story,” the latest production from the Whitefish Theatre Co. that opens this weekend at the O’Shaughnessy Center, weren’t even born when the surreal fantasy tale first came to the big screen in 1984.

So, when they were cast for a play bursting with wild characters and set in a colorful fantasy world, they did what any curious kid would do and sat down to see what they were in for.

“I went and watched the movie and it was really, kind of, just, weird,” Finley Schumacher-Sundberg, who plays Atreyu, said.

“For someone to think of this, it’s just crazy,” Meyer Fauth, Bastian in the play, added. “Who would have thought of Morla the (Ancient) One or Falkor, a luck dragon. It’s just crazy.”

Weird and crazy as it might be, the story — and the book, movie and short-lived TV show — has a cult following among members of a certain generation.

“It’s so funny how people are either not familiar with it at all or people are like ‘oh my God, I love that story,’” Matt Ford, one of the few adults in the cast and both Bastian’s father and the voice of Falkor.

“I was not super-familiar with it at all but I’ve fallen in love with it,” he continued.

“It’s very real. There’s loss and heartache; kind of that age-old story about persevering through your troubles and a belief in what’s good and right. One of Falkor’s best lines is ‘of course you have wings, we all have wings.’

“Everybody has this capacity to do great things within them and to fly, so to speak, if you just believe.”

A KEY part of bringing “The Neverending Story” to life was creating the scenery. Most of the story is set in the magical world of Fantasia and Falkor, an enormous talking, flying, dog-like dragon is one of the main characters.

Turing Falkor from fantasy to (faux) flesh fell to Jen Stebbins-Han, a theater director at Flathead High School and Stillwater Christian School with no formal set-design training. After about a month of work, commuting from her home in Kalispell to the theater in Whitefish, Stebbins-Han has created a pair of oversized puppets — Falkor and Morla.

“I love, love making things that have not a lot of relationship with reality,” she said.

“People keep asking me, ‘how did you learn how to make this?’ I don’t really have a good answer.”

Falkor is made of PVC pipe, chicken wire, foam, cotton sheets and white fur — “Santa Claus fur” as Stebbins-Han called it. The dragon is big enough that Atreyu rides on top of his head as he flies through Fantasia and, with help from technical director Robbie Moody, Falkor comes to life. His mouth and face move as Ford provides his voice and Luca Welle operates him.

“I was blown away by the size of it,” Ford said. “I had envisioned, like, a puppet that somebody is kind of in, manipulating. I didn’t realize it was going to be a permanent thing.”

Director Jesse DeVine brought Welle to rehearsals from the beginning, even before Falkor was ready to hit the stage, to help Welle and Ford sync up. The result thoroughly impressed Ford, a veteran of the Whitefish Theatre Co. and himself the group’s former technical director.

“I really have to give some props to Luca … because he really, with very minimal movements allowed, gets that thing to have some emotion and personality,” Ford said. It’s been really fun to watch him develop his character while listening to me develop mine.”

Stebbins-Han, while pleased with how Falkor came out, said she’s proudest of the turtle, Morla.

“Everyone said ‘it looks like a pile of cardboard,’” she said of the early stages of Morla’s creation. “And it’s the first time I realized I can see her, even now, and to show people stage by stage how each layer goes on. That was just a really fun process to watch; other people starting to see her as she takes shape.”

There is, however, one worry about the turtle, which can pop in and out of its shell.

“I’m mostly nervous that Morla’s eyeballs are going to fall out,” Stebbins-Han said with a laugh.

THE CAST of “The Neverending Story” is more than 40 actors strong, most of them children.

The co-stars, Fauth and Schumacher-Sundberg, are just 10 and 12, respectively, and with limited experience in the theater. But they’ve fallen in love with acting and with these particular parts.

“It is fun,” Fauth said. “I used to be really Eeyore, as my mom would say, then I started the first play and I was happy.”

“I was always that kid who loved drama, who just kind of was always that drama kid,” Schumacher-Sundberg said. “It’s just fun. You can express yourself in different ways.”

Fauth’s character, Bastian, stays mostly in one spot during the play, reading from the book “The Neverending Story” he discovered in a bookstore while seeking refuge from his troubles. Atreyu, Schumacher-Sundberg’s character, has plenty of action — flying atop Falkor and trying to rescue the Childlike Empress.

“He’s a boy who’s a hunter but he can’t really kill,” Schumacher-Sundberg said of Atreyu. “But then he also has anger that’s all boiled up in him and sometimes just comes out.”

Lucy Schindler, 14, is a veteran of the Whitefish Theatre Co., but her character this time around — Gmork, a werewolf — is a departure for her.

“Scary, evil, confusing,” she said of Gmork. “I would say it’s a pretty creepy part.

“In this show I’m the villain and it’s been really fun to be a villain and an animal and just learn new things.”

“THE NEVERENDING Story” premiers with a sneak preview Thursday at 7:30 p.m. Tickets for that show are $10 and available only at the door.

Tickets to the remainder of the shows — Feb. 24, 25, 26 and March 3, 4 and 5 — are available at www.whitefishtheatreco.org or the O’Shaughnessy Center box office. Friday and Saturday shows will begin at 7:30 p.m. with Sunday matinees at 4 p.m.

Entertainment editor Andy Viano may be reached at (406) 758-4439 or aviano@dailyinterlake.com.