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Georgia peaches

by Tim Seyfert

T he pint-sized thespians of the Palo Alto Children's Theatre took a well-deserved bow last weekend after dominating the stage at the first-ever Junior Broadway Theatre Festival.

PACT snagged the award for "Most Outstanding Musical Performance" at the two-day musical theater event held Jan. 18-19 in Atlanta, beating out more than 1,200 other performers. The group was chosen to participate with 26 other youth theater troupes from throughout the country to showcase kid-friendly renditions of well-known productions at the city's historic Fox Theatre.

"It's a way for young people to get exposed to great theater by scaling them down and making them more appropriate for young audiences," PACT assistant director Michael Litfin said.

Though PACT's presentation of "Honk Jr.!" -- a musical re-creation of "The Ugly Duckling" first produced by the company in 2000 -- hardly needed to be "scaled-down" from its original telling, it did dust the competition at the festival. The performance outshone other participating theater groups from such states as Texas, Minnesota, Florida and New Jersey, to name a few.

For PACT director Patricia Briggs, receiving top prize at the festival was only part of the overall reward.

"Winning was a very welcome surprise. It certainly came out of the blue," Briggs said. "But the main thing I hope to se the kids take away from this is the all-around experience."

That experience, according to Briggs, "is a deeper appreciation for the arts, meeting new people and performing for a larger audience than (they've) ever done before." The 1,500-seat capacity of Atlanta's Fox Theatre was, no doubt, quite a change from the Lucy Stern Community Center, where the kids perform for a maximum of 200 people.

The festival also allowed Briggs to stay true to the same mission she's been working toward since becoming the theatre's director in 1961. From the beginning, Briggs has remained loyal to the philosophy of founding director Hazel Robertson, by only producing works for and by children.

While many children's-theatre companies today are made up of mostly adult actors performing for kids, PACT concentrates on letting the young folks run the show by offering them opportunities to act, stage manage and serve on the technical crews, among other tasks.

"It's a way of bringing theatre to the young people of this community," Michael Litfin said. "We get the kids involved as much as possible. They basically do it all."

"We're not necessarily trying to groom them to become big stars," Briggs added. "We're trying to teach them lessons to carry on throughout their lives. Things like public speaking, team work and art appreciation -- they can use these things in everything they do."

The main challenge of getting those lessons across is finding scripts that call for a large number of cast members. To ease the burden, Briggs has written more than 20 scripts for the Children's Theatre, both originals and adaptations of classic stories and well-known fairytales. Some of the group's latest projects include "Beauty and the Beast," which premieres this weekend, as well as the opening of Briggs' latest original creation, "Tell Me A Story," next month.

Whatever project PACT has on the table, each production is fueled by a deep-rooted passion for the theater -- not only from Briggs, but also from the kids and the community as well.

Though personal glory has never been the main motivation behind the job, Briggs said she was very pleased about receiving the award at the festival, and looks forward to many more great projects.

"Children's theater isn't something you do for recognition. You do it because you love it," she said. "Of course, it's always nice to be acknowledged by your peers. I'm very pleased and the kids are too. They deserve every bit of it."