Thursday, Jul. 10, 2008

Campers honor Douglass Theatre history

The budding stage stars have a few run-throughs to make before the real deal Saturday night.

Ezra, the lead tech, will tighten up his fades to black. A Bandana Girl will decide what to do about the hole in her fishnets. The emcee needs to memorize those last few lines and remember: Stay. In. Character.

If Mr. D. hears any more whispers behind that curtain, someone's in trouble.

Campers at the Stageworks-Kidz Tech theater camp are pulling it all together, bit by bit, just in time for "They Played the Douglass," a musical and dance revue of past performances at the historic Douglass Theatre.

Performances get mighty retro, dating back to the 1920s, and include headliners such as Cab Calloway, Little Richard Penniman, Bessie Smith and James Brown.

The curtain goes up 7 p.m. Saturday. The downtown event is free and open to the public.

However, the eighth annual summer camp for kids ages 7-14, only in theory, culminates with the show.

More than 50 campers have learned the ins and outs of acting, singing, dancing and technical theater production during the course of the six-week session.

Local actors, performance artists and drama instructors taught classes in those areas, plus aspects of costume, set design and playwriting.

The campers even had homework.

"Fun homework," said Camden Stephens, 13, who will appear in "Disco Inferno" and multiple other ensemble scenes Saturday. "We had to research our characters and learn about why these people became artists."

Camp director D. Venson, an Atlanta actor and theater company director, said the kids will walk away knowing how to develop the skills into a professional craft.

"They have an understanding now. I've been all over the world because of this amazing skill and talent. It's a legacy I want to give to the kids ... to be able to learn that trade also," he said during a dress rehearsal Wednesday.

Gina Ward, theater manager at the Douglass, said "They Played" was conceptualized especially for this year's camp.

Producers developed the show in conjunction with an Otis Redding tribute exhibit at The Georgia Music Hall of Fame and the theater's 10th anniversary last year since reopening in 1997, she said.

Longtime Macon disc jockey Hamp Swain, a 2008 music hall inductee, recorded a special segment for the camp performance.

Campers will revive Swain's "Teenage Party," a weekly radio show recorded at the Douglass during the late 1950s that featured talent contests frequently won by a then-young Otis Redding.

Return campers say the new production will top last year's, which focused on inspirational music.

"The way I would sum it up is, many people played at the Douglass. A lot of important people played on this stage. We're sort of living in history," 11-year-old Kayla Stephens said. "But some of it is lost history, like the Bandana Girls. They started before the Rockettes and did kick routines and dances first.

"So, we're really paying tribute to the greats, the popular ones and the lost ones."

J'Lynn Welch, 14, who portrays a distant relative of Douglass founder, Charles H. Douglass, will recite a piece of narration describing the theater man.

"He was a visionary and a realist in a time period controlled by racism and segregation," she said.

J'Lynn said she is proud to take part in a performance featuring the work of black performers who struggled to make art during eras of heavy racial turbulence in the nation.

Whitney James said she could relate to the idea of a struggle.

"It's kind of hard getting into the character of a man, when you're a lady," said the 10-year-old girl, who will portray Little Richard. "But I've been watching videos of his old performances. I watch him move, and I realize that he was a lot different than artists and personalities of his time period."

To contact writer Ashley Tusan Joyner, call 744-4347.