Sunday, June 27, 2010
Arts & Extras: For children's theater, giggles a sign of success
Photo courtesy of Pat Wilhelms
Roanoke Children's Theatre's production of "Junie B. Jones and a Little Monkey Business" is hitting the road to perform at libraries in Moneta, Westlake and Rocky Mount.
Arts & Extras column
Mike Allen, arts columnist
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Pat Wilhelms feels there's much more Roanoke Children's Theatre can do to get the word out that a drama company in town is bringing beloved children's books to life.
Yet judging by the packed house at its recent Thursday evening performance of "Junie B. Jones and a Little Monkey Business," quite a number of folks have already gotten the word.
Children squealed and giggled uproariously at the slapstick antics of the beloved picture book character and her friends, played by adult actors with a few children rounding out the chorus.
Roanoke Children's Theatre's plays take place in the Taubman Theatre, and the company opened at the same time as the Taubman Museum of Art, in November 2008, with a production of "Madeline's Christmas," based on the books by Ludwig Bemelmans.
Before she took the helm at RCT, artistic director Wilhelms had been the education director for Mill Mountain Theatre. The children's theater has just concluded its second season, and it has ambitious plans for 2010-11.
"I knew we're better than we were a year ago," Wilhelms said. One of the company's first-season productions, the musical "Honk!" lost money, but financially the second season performed more strongly, she said. She declined to discuss specific financial figures.
"We've made money every year," Wilhelms said. The theater company started at the beginning of a recession, without the big corporate sponsorships available to arts organizations in more prosperous years. "We're operating on the premise of being lean and mean, because that's all we know."
Wilhelms said that come fall, Roanoke Children's Theatre intends to open with something a little different. "The Secret Life of Girls," a play by Linda Daugherty, takes a hard look at bullying among middle school-age girls and how it's amplified by new communications technology such as text messages, chat rooms and instant messaging.
Roanoke Children's Theatre has sought grants to help with educational materials for schools related to the topic and packets to provide to parents who come to the show. Each public showing -- some shows are done exclusively for school groups -- will have discussion sessions with psychologists afterward.
The theater also is looking at ways to launch an ambitious program that would distribute the books that its remaining plays of the season are based on -- C.S. Lewis' "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," Natalie Babbitt's "Tuck Everlasting" and Laura Joffe Numeroff's "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" -- to families throughout the region.
"I want to keep finding ways for us to make the community better," she said.
One effort the theater has publicized has come to a happy conclusion. On Dec. 20, the theater held a special performance to benefit Gary Foster, brother of director of development Shelley Lyons, who needed to raise money to pay for a heart transplant.
Lyons said that as of two weeks ago, Foster had the surgery and is doing well.
In the meantime, the "Junie B. Jones" production isn't quite finished. The production will travel to libraries in Moneta, Westlake and Rocky Mount before lowering its final curtain.
For more information on Roanoke Children's Theatre's classes and upcoming season, call 309-6802 or visit roanokechildrenstheatre.org.
Virginia Film Festival calls for entries
Earlier this month, the Virginia Film Festival put out a call for entries for its 23rd annual cinema celebration to be held Nov. 4-7 in Charlottesville. The festival is presented by the University of Virginia's College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. Submissions must be received by Sept. 8.
All entries must be submitted through the website www.withoutabox.com. A division of the Internet Movie Database (IMDb.com), Withoutabox allows filmmakers to upload and submit their movies as electronic files to participating films festivals.
Submissions are free for Virginia residents, including students.
Rates for out-of-state film submissions will be $45 for the public and $40 for Withoutabox members. Rates for out-of-state students are $10.
The festival will announce its programming for this year's event in early October. For more information, visit www.vafilm.com.
Anyone interested in volunteering for this year's festival can contact David Hopper at (434) 982-5560 or e-mail him at dlh2v@virginia.
On the Arts blog
The Summer Arts Festival is underway at Virginia Tech, and the university's theater department is putting on productions of Edward Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" and the "Peanuts" comic strip-inspired musical "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown." To see a video preview of the "Charlie Brown" musical and learn more about the festival schedule, visit my blog at blogs.roanoke.com/arts.
