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‘Little Red Meets the Wolves’

Camp Creamery offers weeklong theater experience for student actors

-Messenger photo by Joe Sutter
Woodcutters, wolves, and assorted animals… Student actors with their instructors rehearse “Little Red meets the Wolves” during the weeklong Camp Creamery acting program. The performance, complete with costumes and original songs, will be Friday and Saturday.

Putting together and performing a musical takes a lot of time–and work–running through auditions, learning the lines, practicing songs and finding the perfect costumes.

The kids at Camp Creamery will do it in one week.

For the second year, Camp Creamery has come to Fort Dodge to provide a weeklong acting experience to students in the community. The camp, “Little Red Meets the Wolves,” is designed to give children ages 7 and up the unique opportunity to work and perform with three professional actors from The Old Creamery Theatre from the Amana Colonies while they rehearse and present a musical.

“They write new dialog every year, all new songs,” said Shelly Bottorff, president of Stage Door Productions in Fort Dodge. “This year is loosely based on Little Red Riding Hood.”

About 26 kids ages 7 to 14 have been rehearsing all week at the First United Methodist Church, she said. Performances will be 7 p.m. Friday and 2 p.m. Saturday at the church, 127 N. 10th St.

-Messenger photo by Joe Sutter
Braden Kammerer, playing the mayor of the town, makes a proclamation during the penultimate scene in “Little Red meets the Wolves.”

All props, costumes and set pieces are provided by the Old Creamery Theatre, of Garrison.

“This is open to anybody,” Bottorff said. “This is one of the few educational workshops that are available in the community for kids.”

Stage Door’s mission is to help bring those acting and learning opportunities for children.

The group is also in the process of rehearsing for its kids’ summer musical “Beauty and the Beast Jr.,” which will be held July 20-21.

“Children are fortunate enough in our community to be able to get the REC and athletic activities as young as 3 or 4 years old. In Fort Dodge, the first opportunity as far as the public school goes (for) a student to be in a musical is middle school, and for St. Edmond their first exposure to it in the school is at the high school level,” Bottorf said. “So Stage Door has tried to fill that gap.”

-Messenger photo by Joe Sutter
Little Red Riding Hood (Jillian Leman) shakes hands with Wolfgang, leader of the wolves (Chanelle DuBois) after learning not to jump to conclusions in this year’s Camp Creamery production. Alexa McHone, playing a woodcutter, and camp instructor Ali Valentine, playing Granny, look on.

Other theater groups in town provide that opportunity, too. Hawkeye Community Theatre features kids every Christmas, and sometimes during the year, Bottorf said. Comedia Musica, which puts on the adult musical every year, also sometimes has young roles.

Stage Door is focused specifically on youth theater, and it’s been going strong since 2013.

“It’s exciting that there’s momentum in the program, and that parents are finding value in what we’re offering,” Bottorf said.

Camp Creamery will be holding a theater camp in Webster City July 30 – Aug. 4.

It will hold a similar camp, producing a different show, at Twin Lakes Bible Camp July 15-20.

-Messenger photo by Joe Sutter
Little Red Riding Hood confronts the wolf — Jillian Leman, left (Red), and Chanelle DuBois (the leader of the wolves) along with camp instructors Maggie Austin (mom), James Tarrant (woodcutter) and Ali Valentine (Granny) rehearse one of the final scenes during Camp Creamery.

The camps are limited to 40 participants. Participants must be committed to attend each day of camp and each performance.

-Messenger photo by Joe Sutter
The whole cast sings together near the end of Camp Creamery’s musical for this year, which gives about 26 kids from ages 7-14 an opportunity to experience the stage along with professional actors from the Old Creamery Theatre of the Amanas.

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