Act One, Act Now Community Theater for Young People plans an exciting 10th season. The company, which brings together students from public and private schools, performs in retirement homes, at after-school programs, in bookstores and on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus. Cyndy Blackburn, the director, emphasizes classic plays with high-school age students rather than the musicals and student-written plays which are popular at many high schools, and focuses on improvisational and basic skills with children as young as 6 years old.
During the fall, fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders will be adapting Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone for the stage. The company will perform Nov. 3-5, eons before Warner Brothers starts the cameras rolling on its movie based on the book. (This local company may not have Hollywood special effects, but you can’t beat the imagination of a 9-year-old!) The appeal of Harry Potter is so strong that Blackburn expects to hold two separate classes for this age group, and two separate productions. Location TBA.
In mid-November, Act One’s seventh- and eighth-graders will perform the classic screwball comedy, You Can’t Take It With You by Moss Hart and George Kaufman. This fast-paced three-act play involves a collection of odd characters wisecracking their way through the Depression, and it goes on Nov. 17-19 at UNC-Chapel Hill’s Gerard Hall.
The company’s high-school students will present Thornton Wilder’s Matchmaker, Dec. 1-3 at UNC’s Gerard Hall. For more information about these and other performances, call Cyndy Blackburn at 489-8955.
