By Roberta Nee Adams | Special to The Times
The Lynchburg Storybook Theater Club is the brainchild of Angela Comp. She hails from Michigan, where she taught elementary school for thirty years. While teaching, she developed her Storybook Theater idea for her students. Though plays based on books are not anything new, Angela brought it to her students so that they were the actors in the plays.
After moving here in 2021, Angela continued working with children through her Storybook Theater Clubs. Presently the club meets at the Moore County Public Library. Club members are a mix of children in public school, private school, and homeschooled students, ages eight and older.
Presently the club is working on a play based on the book Madeline Finn and the Shelter Dog, by Lisa Papp. The club even helps to paint scenery designed for the plays by talented artist Jacob Boyette. Set building and rehearsals are in progress now. Club members pay $5.00 at each practice to help offset the cost of putting on the plays. The library donates some of the materials for set building.
Angela selects books for plays that have lessons for children such as kindness, service to others, or personal rights. She also ties the plays to community service. For Madeline Finn and the Shelter Dog, she is having each child bring a can of cat or dog food. The food will be collected and given to the Friends of Animals animal rescue. Last spring, when presenting Uncle Willy and the Soup Kitchen, the children brought cans of food, which were collected and distributed to area churches.
{Editor’s Note: This article is brought to thanks to an editorial partnership between The Lynchburg Times and The Moore County News. To read more of their articles, click here.}
After selecting a book for a play, Angela writes the script and picks fun music suitable to the script. She plans for two plays a year, and has a list of books she has chosen for upcoming plays. The plays are performed at the library, and also performed at area nursing and assisted living facilities. After the play this fall the players will take a field trip to Friends of Animals and read to the animals there.
The public is invited to attend the performances. Scheduled dates are as follows: Friday, Nov 21, 3:00 P.M. at the Franklin County Public Library, 105 S. Porter Street, Winchester, Saturday, Nov 22, 10:00 A.M. at the Coffee County Lannom Memorial Library, 312 N. Collins Street, Tullahoma, and Monday, Nov 24, 10:30 A.M. at Moore County Public Library, 17 Majors Blvd., Lynchburg. The play is free of charge. If attending, however, please consider bringing a can of dog or cat food to donate to the Lynchburg Friends of Animals shelter. •
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