With the absence of students during the summer months, Charleston’s various theatre groups focus towards a different audience: children.

Taking time away from summer classes and jobs, a few Eastern students go out to the Village Theatre, located on 18th Street, to participate in rehearsals for the Eastern theatre department’s summer production of “Aesop’s Fables.”

The few players and staff work at getting back into the groove of performing during the summer months.

The department has just started getting back into having summer productions last summer after years of having nothing.

“[The summer program] gave out when we moved to 18th Street after the original Doudna building closed,” said John T. Oertling, chairman of the theatre department. “We didn’t have the equipment. It was a departmental choice [not to have the program.]”

With the coming anticipation of the new Doudna Fine Arts Center, the department opened their doors last summer with another children’s performance “Livin’ de Life,” Uncle Remus tales of Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox. The turn out was good enough for the department to focus another summer production on children.

“In Charleston, there is no summer theatre for children. Most community theatre is for adults, but theatre for the youth is also just as important,” said Oertling.

Because of the amount of people and budget money, something that sets them apart from normal semesters, the department can only afford one production during the summer months. But, Oertling said they are using that time to build an audience.

“We hope to have the program grow and expand, especially when we go to the new building,” said Oertling.

The Eastern summer theatre company is only 10 people, including actors and crew. Three of the actors in the play are not even Eastern students. Joe Allison, playing the role of Aesop, graduated from Eastern years ago and now works as the assistant to the costumer for the theatre department; Krista Greenwood is an upcoming senior at a local high school; and Meagan, another player, is an upcoming freshman in high school. They see this as an opportunity to help develop their skills in the theatre arts outside of the regular school year.

Oertling is set to direct the play himself, something he likes to do at least once a year.

At rehearsal, each of the players quickly get into their expected roles. The actors, excluding Allison, perform as versions of themselves who quickly revert back to childhood mentality when fabulist Aesop comes into the room. Most of them jump to the idea of recreating the fables for Aesop.

“With children, you have to keep them stimulated at all times,” said Allison. “You have to keep on your toes because they have a tendency to talk to you, and they do, because to them it is not a play.”

Oertling, as director, must find ways to help his actors perform for the toughest audience they can have, children.

“When children see the show, it’s a different mindset,” Oertling said. “To perform for children you need to be really honest. Children see right through you, they are not forgiving. You need to grab and hold their attention. At least adults can forgive you.”

Justin Finley is in his second year at Eastern and joined the theatre department during the Spring semester. Not having performed in many children’s shows, he feels this performance “will be interesting, but not much more difficult [than a normal semester].” To him the play “reminds me of “Barney” with getting kids to sing and play along, only its Aesop telling fables.”

The production uses light costumes and set design, using only a few props as well as player T-shirts for the entire show. The play is relying on the audience to use their imagination for their stories, which might turn out to be difficult for some of the actors as well as the audience.

“I have not performed with anything like this before, but I am looking forward to how the kids will react to it,” said Finley, who feels the children will have a positive response to using their imagination.

With the draw of technology and electronics, the use of imagination looks to be diminishing, something Allison fears for the youth of today, as well for the children who attend the show.

“We need to have more of this [use of imagination], stuff like this for kids. Children need to use their imagination and I fear that some don’t,” Allison said.

Overall, the Eastern summer theatre department will be working hard for the next two weeks to bring the play “Aesop’s Fables, ” which as Finley said, ” is a set of short stories using animals to teach children morals of virtue and morality.”

Performances for the Eastern theatre department’s production will be June 20-23 at 10 a.m. at the Village Theatre.

The Eastern theatre department is not the only theatre group that is concentrating on the youth this summer.

The Charleston Alley Theatre, 718 Monroe Ave., is co-hosting a youth-oriented puppet workshop with Lake Land College’s Summer College for Kids. The program is ran through Lake Land, but is performed at the Charleston Alley Theatre.

The workshop is for youth ages 8 years old – 18 years old and is a two week course from July 9-13 and July 16- 20 where youth can create puppets, dialogue and music scores based off of Sergei Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf.” Performances of the puppet show will be Saturday, July 21.

Jeri Hughes, a member of Charleston Alley Theatre, is heading up the puppet production workshop, while CAT director Tony Cox is conduction the music portion of the production.

Since the death of CAT co-owner Tanya Wood in 2005, there have been no summer performances for the theatre group.

“[Tanya] was an avid puppeteer and did puppet shows for children during the summer,” said Hughes. “After a couple of years [from her death] we decided to let her memory live on [through the show.”

Summer is usually a dead time for Charleston theatre, said Hughes. Not many companies want to put on performances. However, Hughes hopes to get a good outcome with the workshop.

Registration for the workshop is open until one week before it begins. Anyone interested can register at Lake Land College.

Charleston Alley Theatre; although, might be putting on another workshop as well later this summer.

At this moment, the theatre is still deciding on whether or not to run a Commedia dell’ Art workshop. Commedia dell’ Art is a form of Italian Renaissance improve theatre. Hughes encourages anyone interested to contact the CAT at [email protected].