Students in Lenoir City Elementary School’s Panther Players theatrical group took a field trip last week to the Tellico Community Players’ theater for a behind-the-scenes tour to help the students gain a better appreciation for performance arts.
Last week’s trip was the first time the Tellico Community Players welcomed the elementary school’s acting club to its facility, which opened up in October and had a grand opening in December, Steve Mayberry, president of the Tellico Community Players, said.
“This it to show the kids that there’s more to it than just acting,” Debbie Mayberry, coordinator of the group’s reader’s theater, said. “There’s a technical end, and not everybody has to stand in front of everybody.”
“And how many people it takes to put on a show,” Steve Mayberry said. “The rule of thumb is for every actor on stage there’s three or four off stage, and for six people, you’re looking at 24 people that (are) pretty much involved off stage.”
Currently, the Tellico Community Players are working on a rendition of the 1981 movie, “On Golden Pond,” which featured Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn. The play has six acting parts in it, Steve Mayberry said. On average, the Village acting group works on four to five “major productions” each year, he said. Recently, the group just finished “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Next.” He said “On Golden Pond” was scheduled for shows April 23-25, 30, and May 1-3.
The Panther Players, comprised of 21 second- and third-graders, got the opportunity to operate stage lights and learn about sound systems and sound effects, Anne Talmont, Panther Players director and media center teacher for the elementary school, said.
“The students were extremely interested in how the set was built with walls, doors, windows, etc. (etcetera),” Talmont said in an email correspondence. “Our little productions don’t involve anything at that level so that was of great interest to them. And, of course, the girls enjoyed the costume areas and the Green Room.”
DeAnne Johnson’s daughter, third-grader Caroline Johnson, took the tour. DeAnne also serves as a substitute at LCES, she said.
“I think it’s a wonderful opportunity,” she said. “There are a lot of children who are not in church plays or other community plays that this gives them a whole new outlook on the world and what they can grow up to become or do no matter what career they want to have, whether it’s engineering and designing sets or fashion costuming.”
Steve Mayberry said the Tellico Community Players want to emphasize that the theater is a community-based theater.
“This is very much in the line of things that we wanted to do to build a community theater because we’re bringing in kids now, and we’re bringing them to us instead of us going to them,” Debbie Mayberry said, laughing.
The Panther Players recently did a production based on the Dr. Seuss book, “Daisy-Head Mayzie,” and in May will do a play on The Beatles. After last week’s tour, Talmont said she believes the kids will want to take their work to an actual stage instead of the school gymnasium floor.
“The children loved the trip and getting to see the workings of a theater,” Talmont said. “They talked about it all the way home and the bus and when their parents picked them up, they bombarded their families with information about the field trip.”
The Tellico Community Players have an involvement in elementary schools in Loudon and surrounding counties. Each year the group coordinates a reader’s theater for students.
“Reader’s theater is becoming very popular and much better well known in that you have scripts in front of you, but you actually — and it a lot of it is to the imagination for the audience,” Steve Mayberry said. “And the actors really have to know their lines, but the scripts are there for assistance.”
Talmont said she hopes to return to the Tellico Community Players’ theater next year with a new group of Panther Players, and let the students attend a performance at the Knoxville Children’s Theatre if possible.
“Enabling our students to have firsthand exposure and experience in outside events does so much to encourage their interest and depth of understanding,” she said.
