Graham Regional Theater Camp to perform "The Lion King Jr.”
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Bryanna Nickel in front gets practices a song at the Perry theatre on Monday during the Graham Regional Theatre’s Youth Summer Camp. The group will be spend all week practicing the play “The Lion King Jr.” and will perform the play on Friday and Saturday at the Graham memorial auditorium. (Leader photo by Thomas Wallner) -
Brooklyn Stewart,in front, sings with 28 children involved in the Graham Regional Theatre’s Youth Summer Camp which will be performing “The Lion King Jr.” this Friday and Saturday. Last year was the first year for the program and the children performed the play “Suessical Jr.” (Leader photo by Thomas Wallner)
For a second year the Graham Regional Theatre is hosting their Youth Summer Camp which leads up to a performance of “The Lion King Jr.,” Friday and Saturday, June 16 and 17 at 7 p.m. in Memorial Auditorium.
“The Lion King Jr.” is two-act musical adapted from the larger musical version of “The Lion King,” that will be performed entirely by the children in the GRT Youth Summer Camp. The play was chosen based on being a well known story, GRT Director Christian Sanders said.
“I felt that knowing the kids we would have and my familiarity with it and their familiarity with it, I think it would serve the community well,” he said. “It is a good show for the kids to do and it is fun to watch and it is interesting to perform.”
Katie Huitt and Stephanie Sanders are the camp directors and while Huitt works on the camp activities and costume designing, Sanders handles the choreography and blocking of the production. The camp does not just serve as a teaching tool for the basics of theater, but also a camp for fun activities.
“It is not just doing a show, they are learning about theater, character creation, what it takes to be in a show and like games that help build their character and things,” Stephanie said. “It is not just we are just going to rehearse a show all week. We do that in addition to a traditional theatrical camp where you are learning base skills that will help you in all other acting, not just the show.”
A total of 29 children are a part of the camp that will, over the course of a week, result in a live production. Rehearsals take place Monday through Friday for the those involved in the camp and they don’t just practice their performance, Stephanie said.
“We are building all the costumes during camp as we go, so they are starting right now to start building all their costumes and putting everything together,” she said. “We start literally from scratch Monday morning at 8:30 (a.m.) and by Friday night at 7 (p.m.) we have a full production to put up.”
The children learned seven songs on Monday and the next day moved onto the rest of the songs in the production which contains 20-25 songs in total. On top of learning songs in a limited span of time some children involved in “The Lion King Jr.,” have to learn double for the production of “The Little Mermaid,” which starts next weekend.
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