HATTIESBURG – A lifelong passion for musical theater and a flair for teaching has been the motivation for Brenda Shows to operate StageStruck Performance Studio, a children’s theater program in Lamar County, for nearly 20 years.
StageStruck will be presenting its spring production of The Little Mermaid Jr. this weekend at the Saenger Theater in downtown Hattiesburg, and Shows was in the middle of everything during dress rehearsals earlier this week.
“There are only so many shows that I think are going to draw an audience,” said Shows, a 50-plus year veteran of theater, from high school to the present. “The Little Mermaid is very popular, beloved really, and there are a lot of parts for all the kids to play.”
StageStruck’s mission statement, taken from the group’s website, calls the studio, “a values-driven children’s theater program (that) is dedicated to the development of life skills through the performing arts.”
“In 2005, we decided to start something up for kids who liked theater,” said Shows.
“You can take piano, you can take dance, things like that, but there wasn’t anything for theater kids unless a local community theater did something that required some kids. Then they’d just sing a song and get shuffled offstage.”
Shows wanted to help children fully mature through the skills the theater offers.
“I teach theater, and speech,” said Shows. “I teach them how to get up in front of a crowd, because a lot of kids don’t do that now. Then we teach them all the parts of theater, the projection and quality of the voice.”
Performances of The Little Mermaid will be 7 p.m. Friday, 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Saturday with a 2 p.m. matinee Sunday to close out the weekend.
This is the second time StageStruck has presented The Little Mermaid, the last time in 2013, but the story, adapted from the Hans Christian Andersen tale, resonates with the young actors who fill the role of Ariel.
“I have. I always wanted to be a Disney princess,” said Brooklyn Baughman, who was in costume as Ariel for this dress rehearsal. “Ariel’s very independent; I love how persistent she is at getting what she wants.”
Most of the lead roles and a lot of the support cast are divided into two different shows, to meet the demands of four performances in three days.
“It’s really, really fun to watch her,” said Amelia Bennett, who alternates as the show’s lead. “She’s a great person to be splitting a role with. We look at it more cooperatively than as competition.”
Shows says it also gives her actors a break and offers more kids a chance to perform. This year, she has 114 students taking classes and performing in some capacity. She started with about 30 the first year, and doubled that the next.
“We double-cast in order to give everybody an opportunity,” Shows said. “And for the obvious reason that when you’re working with children this age, something might happen and they get sick or something, we’ve got a back-up.”
The studio accepts children from first grade through high school. Classes are once a week, at least most of the year. Tuition is $85 a month; additional siblings are $75 each. There is a performance fee of approximately $150 per student that is due before the spring production.
“StageStruck is nine months out of the year, and it depends on what’s going on,” said Luke Goodwin, who appears in the pivotal role of King Triton, Ariel’s beleaguered father.
“But for about six or seven months, it’s only an hour a week. Once you get closer to performance, its gets a lot more (time-consuming). With this role, I didn’t have too many out-of-class rehearsals, so until this week, it was only about two or three hours a week.”
Goodwin is one of the few lead characters who will perform in all four shows, and he admits it is a challenge.
“It is kind of difficult, because I do a lot of yelling,” said Goodwin. “So that can hurt my voice. I’m feeling it a little today, but I’ve just got to do what I need to do to keep my voice up.”
Shows caught the acting bug when she was in high school at Watkins High in Laurel in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
She acted in plays through high school and at college at Southern Miss. After graduation, she taught school and performed regularly in community theater, and also did a 10-year stint as host of the Midday program on WDAM-TV.
Opening StageStruck in 2005 was the culmination of a dream she’d long had of opening a theater camp or studio. Her focus then, and now, is on musical theater.
“I have so many kids, and there are very few (dramas) that you can have everybody with a part,” said Shows.
“Everybody’s in the show (at StageStruck). They all audition, and they all have to have a resume. We treat them like we don’t know them and have them audition, then we select them for what part they’re going to play.”
Among the past productions the studio has put on include Beauty and the Beast, Shrek and the Wizard of Oz.
Of course, it is a well-known fact in musical theater that the juiciest roles go to the villains, in this case Ursula, the sister of King Triton, who seeks to remove Ariel as an obstacle to her plan to overthrow her brother and rule as Queen of the Seas.
“It is a lot of fun,” said Eliza Kate Kosko, who plays Ursula in one of the two productions. “I’d rather play a villain than a protagonist, personally. I’m having a lot of fun with it.”
Kosko, a senior at Presbyterian Christian School, is hoping to continue in theater, but her focus in college will be elsewhere.
“I thought about (studying drama) for a really long time, and a lot of people wanted me to and recommended me for that,” Kosko said. “But I’m going to college for nutrition and food science. However, I’d love to end up back onstage later on in life.”
Bella Killingsworth, who plays Ursula on the opposite side of the bill, doesn’t look villainous, but she commutes from Monticello to perform with StageStruck, so she’s more than prepared to take on the role of bad girl.
“It’s so much fun,” said Killingsworth, who attends the Spectra School in Monticello. “I’m kind of quiet natured, but Ursula is BIG. So it’s, like, a little scary, but I’ve gotten used to it, and it’s a really fun role.”
Killingsworth has been involved with StageStruck for the past two years, after starting on stage in ballet.
“I liked being onstage, but I hated dancing,” said Killingsworth. “But I loved the stage and the costumes, and I just really got into theater.”
One of the hallmarks of a StageStruck production are the elaborate costumes, and that is the realm of Jo Ann Ignatius, who has been designing and creating costumes for Shows for 12 years.
And it is a time-consuming process.
“Oh gosh, let’s see. September?” said Ignatius when asked how long she had been working on the costumes for The Little Mermaid. “And it gets really crazy the last month. It’s nose to the grindstone.
“I research a lot, and I talk to Brenda a lot, because it’s her vision as to what she wants in a costume. But we’ve been working together so long that she pretty much lets me go now. Probably the biggest one this year is Ursula, and there’s a cool concept at the end.”
Applications are being taken for the 2024-25 school year.
“You do have some attrition, but the kids mostly love the program,” Shows said. “I have a teacher who’s been with us since she was (age) 4. She cried when she graduated out in ninth grade, but now she’s come back to teach.”
