Every spring, Texas A&M University-Kingsville’s theater honor society, Alpha Psi Omega, puts on a children’s show that is seen by practically every elementary student from Riviera to Alice, and Spring 2020 will be no different.
Alpha Psi Omega, APO, is having open auditions from 5 to 8 p.m., Nov. 11 and 12 at The Little Theater for their children’s performance “Who’s Afraid of Little Red Riding Hood,” by TAMUK’s own Dr. Patrick Faherty. This play will be performed in the Jones Auditorium and will be directed by TAMUK student Devyn Hamblin next semester.
TAMUK has been performing children’s shows since the very early 1950s which adds up to near 100,000 children having seen these dedicated performances.
The Jones Auditorium was originally built during WWII and was designed to have a balcony, but money ran out. The balcony was removed from the design but not until after the rest of the auditorium already had been built.
Since Jones Auditorium is essentially permanently incomplete, it presents acting challenges because the lack of balcony creates a dead zone right in the center of the theater where usually one finds the best seats.
The performers of APO work around this during children’s performances by using the whole auditorium as their stage. Using different exits to enter into the crowd not only gives interest to the children and story itself, but helps to eliminate the lack of sound in some areas of the audience.
Though the audience is almost completely compiled of children, this does not change the work put into each performance.
Faherty has been with TAMUK for a long time and has been involved with the children performances for many years.
“These are sophisticated children…so if you treat them like children-children, you’re going to have them lose interest,” Faherty said. “You have to treat them as people that already have a sense of what this is going to look like.”
The actors, from experience, understand what happens when you are not genuine. Laurie Guajardo Hoefelmeyer has been a part of these performances in the past and has children of her own.
“It’s fantastic with kids because you really can’t phone it in, it’s one of the best audiences you can have because they’re so genuine,” Guajardo Hoefelmeyer said.
Etta Enow has performed several children’s shows and has been very popular with the children. When the children are able to shake hands and wave at the performers as they leave to their buses, it gives the actors a natural high one can only get from those glistening eyes of young children.
“As someone who’s acted in lot of these children shows, the kids just make you feel larger than life, almost like a celebrity,” Enow said.
Several TAMUK theater students have grown up in the area and are able to now be a part of this magic the children experience. The children’s show in the Jones Auditorium is often the first theater experience local children will have.
This will be the first play Hamblin is directing on her own, and though she is nervous, she is thrilled to be a part of it.
“I grew up in the area so I remember coming to see these children’s shows as a kid…I’m really excited to help create some of that excitement for the kids,” Hamblin said.
Even though the performance is designed for the local children, there will be an opportunity for anyone to come watch it on the Sunday following the children’s performances.