AROUND THE PARK AGAIN by Sharon Lee Tegler
“Saturday was awesome – the busiest day of my life,” said Theater in the Park founder and director Jennifer Lee Kraus. “We did fourteen shows in one day. We began with our Broadway Babies at 9 am and didn’t finish until 10 pm.”
The show, “Time Warp The Musical” was performed “live” for audiences under somewhat challenging circumstances. To follow COVID guidelines, the children needed to appear in groups of ten according to age. The audiences were kept small and were socially distanced.
“Seven groups performed twice each to stay within the guidelines for audience numbers. First to perform were our little 3 to 5-year-olds,” Kraus said. “Next were our 5 to 8-year-olds, followed by our 9’s and 10’s, and ending with kids eleven and up.”
Further complicating matters, the production was to have been performed on the stage of the Holy Grounds building but had to be relocated due to renovation work. The show was moved, instead, to the Severna Park Community Center’s Andy Borland Gymnasium.
Kraus and her team of directors and assistants spent the night before “Time Warp The Musical” in the gym installing three different backdrops and a huge Time Warp Machine. Fortunately, TITP had recently purchased a new sound system and twelve body mics so each performer could wear one to be heard across the wide expanse of the facility.
Costumes were imaginative, recreating retro looks from the 1950’s through succeeding decades of fashions courtesy of the Time Warp Machine. The music followed a similar pattern from 50’s era “Splish Splash” and “Rock Around The Clock” to Gloria Gaynor’s 70’s hit “I Will Survive”, 2000’s “Who Let The Dogs Out” and beyond.
Costumes were creative, bridging decades of fashions courtesy of the Time Warp Machine.
The Theater in the Park team’s efforts and those of the young performers were warmly rewarded. According to Kraus, audiences were delighted and their comments wonderful. Many parents mentioned how glad they were to finally see a live performance. Others said they’d so looked forward to the musical that it was a highlight of their family’s life.
Families also noted that they appreciated that TITP stayed open throughout the pandemic.
“To do that was financially rough,” said Kraus. “We had to reserve more space, hire more directors, and have fewer kids in each class but keeping our doors open was so worth it.”
The “Time Warp” performances capped a busy time for Theater in the Park. A week before, they’d staged one of their Pitch Perfect group choral performances which was moved from its scheduled location at Holy Grounds to the front steps of Woods Memorial Presbyterian Church. Thanks to TITP’s great sound system, the concert featuring music from the group Abba was a great success. For information on Theater In The Park musical workshops, visit Musical Theater Workshop for Kids – Home (theaterinthepark.net)
Children’s Art Show at Woods’ Fellowship Hall a visual delight
For most of Woods Child Development Center’s 65 year history, the annual children’s art show has been as much a social occasion as a viewing. But the show didn’t happen at all in 2020 thanks to COVID-19 related church closures. This year, the show is back and about to open – albeit in socially distanced fashion – according to director Jessica Kemper.
Kemper, along with several teachers and assistants, helped hang the show Tuesday for a Wednesday viewing from 6 to 7:30 pm. A sneak peek at the art revealed how amazing it is for children so young. Walking into Fellowship Hall, one’s eyes were immediately drawn to a whole bevy of “umbrella people” made by 2-year-olds . The children replaced the figures heads with photos taken by their teachers of their own faces.
The art was so colorful and pretty – especially the umbrella figures with likenesses of the two-year-olds.
Noting that the children who created all the art were so young, Kemper introduced teachers Amanda Siverling and Christine Westphal who were in the process of finishing panels showing their classes’ work.
“Our children use their imaginations so well,” Kemper said. “They’re making sculptures from tinfoil, creating acrylic art on panels, geometric designs, and colorful mosaics using many different techniques. I’m always surprised by what they can do.”
Among her favorites were the acrylic panels which she believed lovely enough to hang in her own home.
Kemper took a few minutes for a brief history of the child development center. She revealed that it was started in 1954 by two women from the community who wanted to offer a school opportunity for children from all walks of life, socio-economic backgrounds and races. It was very inexpensive for the times.
It began as a little church preschool a couple mornings a week but developed over the years. By 1984, they’d added a school day childcare program licensed by the Maryland Office of Childcare. Currently, the child development center has two programs – a preschool program which meets two or three days a week in the mornings and a full-day childcare program for two, three or five days which opens at 6:45 am and runs till 6 pm but has flexible hours. In a normal year, the center accommodates about 140 students though during the pandemic it has been limited to 72 students.
Kemper briefly touched on “art nights” which both staff and parents have missed.
“In past years, we’ve had the room laid out differently so people can congregate because it’s really been quite a social occasion for the parents and children. We’ve usually served strawberries and cookies and lemonade and juices and have also held a Spring Basket silent auction as a fundraiser for the center,” she said. “This year, we’re only doing the art part and the room is set up so families enter from one direction and file through and exit to the outside from the opposite direction.”
Crossing to another area of the art exhibit she’s fond of, Kemper pointed to a number of geometric designs and mosaics created by three-year-olds.
Lastly, the director pointed to a blue box decorated in clouds and explained that, throughout the year, the box had been various things.
“According to the story that’s attached, the beloved box was recycled many times. On its journey, it was a rocket ship, a cave, a tunnel, a volcano and a gas station pump,” she read. “At the end of its journey, the class turned it into a beautiful sky with their own rendition of painted clouds from the book, ‘It Looked Like Spilt Milk’. Each child’s cloud tells a different story and each child can tell what it means.”
For more information on Woods Child Development Center, visit Woods Child Development Center ~ Home (woodscdc.org) .
