POPLAR BLUFF, MO–Critics savaged Monday's underwhelming stage debut of second-grader Kimberly Bauer, who "fumbled and stumbled her way" through the role of the Happy Little Pine Tree in Mrs. Shore's class production of Our Forest Friends. "What is supposed to be an eloquently simple role was bludgeoned into the ground by Ms. Bauer's ham-fisted delivery and clunky sense of timing," said Poplar Bluff Gazette theater critic Meredith Woodson. "One might have leaned her cardboard-cutout tree costume against the wall for a superior display of thespianism."