Taking to the stage for the first time

By CARRIE STAMBAUGH - The Independent

SANDY HOOK December 07, 2008 01:53 am

— The curtain dropped Thursday night at the Adkins-Caudill Performing Arts Center on the final run of “Still Life With Iris.”
The play, a fantasy adventure following the journey of a young girl searching for her home through memories of her past, marks an important milestone for the school’s burgeoning theater program. It is the first full-length production performed at the theater by Elliott County High School students.
Thirteen high school students produced the play with help from the Lexington Children’s Theater as part of a yearlong theater course taught by English teacher Misty Lewis. The course is in its second year and is at the forefront of expanding performing arts education in Elliott County’s schools and enriching the community through expanded cultural arts.
The 318-seat 12,000-foot state-of-the-art theater, built with funds from the W. Paul & Lucille Caudill Little Foundation and the state legislature, was dedicated in April. The theater has quickly become a source of pride for the school district as well as the community, said Frank Olson, a former Elliott County educator turned performing arts facilitator. He said it is used for a variety of public events and school functions.
“Still Life With Iris” is the drama course’s first and only full-length production this year but will be utilized by the class next semester to produce scenes and one-act plays as it continues education on all aspects of theater, Olson said. In addition to acting, the course covers stage managing, set construction, lighting, sounding, blocking and the logistics of running a theater house, including seating the audience.
“This is the second year for the class. Last year we were crawling before we walked, this year we’re walking, and next year I hope we’re walking at a brisker pace. We are learning as we go,” he said.
He credited the Lexington Children’s Theater Caudill-Little Outreach Programs for making the production happen and allowing the students to utilize all the technology in the theater to its fullest potential. The Lexington Children’s Theater put on “Still Life With Iris” this summer at Morehead State University and then moved the set, soundtrack and costumes to the high school for use by the drama students.
Octavia Fleck, the director of the Elliott and Rowan County Lexington Children’s Outreach Program, and her assistant, Brittany Stacy, along with lighting professional Tim Hood, worked with Lewis and himself to make the show possible. The Lexington Children’s Theater outreach program has had several workshops at the center and is constantly working with the school system, Olson said.
He said the students’ first production can be counted as a great success. Students performed the play for Elliott students in grades three through 12 in three separate performances last week and had the only public showing Thursday night.
Olson said the most important performance was the one viewed by high school students Thursday afternoon. “This is when they were performing in front of their peers and they really pulled it off,” he said.
“The response from the audience -— they got to see people in a new way. They got to be an audience that laughed when there were laughing lines and they were moved when there were poignant points in the play,” he said.
He said the atmosphere of seeing a production in a theater is a novelty for the students. “The whole high school walks to the shows, performed by their peers — it was in one of the finest performing arts centers in the area, and they got to sit down in the theater and be treated to a high class play. It was new for everybody,” Olson said.
It was also a new experience for the 150 who attended the Thursday night production, Olson said. Although the theater was only about half full, the enthusiasm was tangible, he said.
The goal is to continue to grow that enthusiasm throughout the community, Olson said. “I think almost every show we have here, bluegrass or the gospel singing with the quartet, or the school Christmas programs, about a third of the crowd has never been in here before. So over time we’re introducing it to the community.”
CARRIE STAMBAUGH can be reached at cstambaugh@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2653.

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