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I knew it - East Jessamine always were Colts at heart!...read more...

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Jessamine County homeschoolers got some schooling away from home last week as they traveled to the Lexington Children’s Theatre for a performance of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”

Twenty-four students from 8 years old to high school age worked on the production from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., Monday through Friday and then performed it in front of family and friends Friday afternoon.

The event was organized by Jessamine County Home Educators Association, which also worked with the theatre to do similar workshops last year of Charlotte’s Web and Robin Hood.

“This is a relationship we’ve been developing with the homeschool group,” said Eric Abele, a teaching artist for the production. “We’d like to keep it up, because they’re great kids.”

Abele, the associate artist for education and costume at the Lexington Children’s Theatre, said the main benefit of working with homeschoolers was that they were available during the day when no holiday or break was involved.

Shavonn Simmons, who had two children in the show, said her kids had gained the courage to audition for and perform in a production at the Lexington Opera House from participating in previous workshops.

“I think it’s a great confidence builder,” she said. “If we hadn’t done [the workshops], I don’t think they would have thought they could make [the opera-house production].”

The group only had one week to put the production together from start to finish. The students read through the script the first day and picked a character for audition. Abele and Holly Yokley, the other teaching artist for the show, matched students with parts based on their preferences and their strengths.

Abele said the students practiced so well throughout the week that they had time to polish the show and tweak minor issues.

“Because we have such limited time, we have to make the right choice the first time, because there’s very little time left to correct it,” he said. “What was nice about this group was that they worked so hard that we actually did have time to go back and say, ‘Well, let’s try it this way instead of that way,’ and the show just kept getting stronger because we were able to make so many adjustments.”

Students who had worked with the Lexington Children’s Theatre in previous workshops like Robin Hood used similar props and costumes but engaged their creativity in thinking about the items differently

“It helps them with their imagination to see how they can transition one piece from thinking of it just one way, thinking of it just in the world of Robin Hood, and transitioning it into the world of Willy Wonka,” Yokley said.

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