Kids Reach offers youngsters opportunities in theater production

It's never too early to be the center of attention - with lights, props, a set and a good script - and children of Huntsville will soon get a chance to shine in a new program designed specially for them.

Kids Reach is a children's theater production company sponsored by Huntsville's Promise, Huntsville YMCA and the Huntsville Arts Commission and allows kids a chance to take participation in theater production to a whole new level.

The 15 kids (ages 9 and up) chosen to take part in this summer's program will be able to produce, write and choreograph (along with every other responsibility involved) their own original play. The theme this year is "celebration," so Marjean Creager, co-director and creator of Kids Reach, is hoping to have comedies dominate the productions.

Creager, a former middle school teacher, said she has high hopes for this year's productions.

"This is going to be lots of fun, and I am really looking forward to working with kids again," Creager said. "I think we are going to have a great time with kids who like to write and perform and be silly and make people laugh and be happy."

Auditions for Kids Reach will take place Saturday at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. at the Old Town Theater on 12th Street. Creager is hoping for a wide variety of middle and high school kids to audition. Preparation and rehearsal time for the productions will take place Tuesdays and Thursdays throughout June with a tour of the productions (going to various locations around town like with Main Street Productions as well as several senior care centers) for the month of July.

Creager created Kids Reach as a way for kids to learn how to give back to the community.

"I want this to be an opportunity for these kids to give back and to learn what it is to share their talent," Creager said. "Over the last several years, the more I taught and realized that performing is more about giving back. So I took productions like this to M.D. Anderson, to Brookwood Community in Katy and to the hospital here. And it really just impacted all of us a lot. It was a really good thing."

Creager said the best thing about having kids make their own costumes, write their own scripts and stage their own stage movement is watching their perspectives change.

"I think to watch them to begin to interact with older people in a different way is one of the best feelings. At first the kids are afraid of (seniors), a lot of them stand back and are not interactive, but that changes and they go up and take a hand and visit with them and develop a bond," Creager said. "One girl told me at one point that it 'changed my life and the way I looked at things.' That's a pretty powerful statement from an eighth-grader. They realize that they are people. Their bodies may be old and frail but their souls are still strong and their own. Kids want to make a difference, to a do something, to help out. It is something that is intrinsic in all of us and this helps to tap into that part of themselves."

Stewart Smith is a reporter at The Huntsville Item. He can be reached at (936) 295-5407, ext. 3052 or by e-mail at ssmith@itemonline.com