ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, August 13, 1996 TAG: 9608130047
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JENNIFER MILLER STAFF WRITER
In the waning weeks of summer vacation, 24 students spent their days thumbing through encyclopedias and watching Discovery Channel and National Geographic Explorer programs.
They were researching characters - Romanian gymnasts, Arabian schoolgirls and English royalty - that they would portray for a week-long drama camp at Mill Mountain Theatre.
The student actors came to camp with a theme, "Rainbow of the World," for a play that would draw different cultures together under its spectrum.
But the play hadn't been written yet.
That was the job of the students, ages 8 to 13, who came from all over the valley to learn about acting, singing, and dancing before an audience - all at the same time.
Michelle Bennett, marketing assistant for Mill Mountain, said the group was there to learn three basic tools of acting: imagination, voice and body.
During five morning sessions, campers took their characters from a description on paper to an animated person on stage with monologues and movements.
"Don't think real life; think theater," drama teacher Doreen Dvorscak shouted as her students practiced their pantomime.
Nine-year old Sarah Armstrong, a fourth-grader from Salem, depicted a girl from Eastern India named Nicoma. She told the audience she sells toys her father makes and uses the money or rupees to buy food, like lentils, for her family.
"We are learning a little bit about all kinds of people," said Armstrong, who also attended the camp last year. "I like the performance, and the people who run it are really nice and funny."
Roanoke fourth-grader Ashtin Harter came to camp because she wants to be an actress, writer or director someday.
"I like to play other people," Harter said with a smile. But "it's hard to memorize and get everything done in a week."
Camp-goers put together their play in five days, memorizing their movements, songs and lines. It all came together in time for a recital Saturday morning, in front of mostly friends and family in Theatre B at Mill Mountain Theatre. (This week - the last this summer for the drama camp - 50 older and more advanced student actors are creating their own play, performing it Saturday for an equally friendly audience.)
The costumes were not elaborate - only Mill Mountain T-shirts in assorted colors, shorts and tennis shoes. The props were limited to capes and ribbons. But the result of about 20 hours of practice was a skit that rekindled the international spirit felt at the 1996 Atlanta Centennial Olympic Games.
The student actors, carrying banners of all different colors, brought their character's different cultures together to form a rainbow.
Not all cultures "do things like Americans do," said 9-year old Tempe Williamson from Louisburg, N.C., who was in Roanoke visiting relatives. "This is a fun way to learn about other people.
"It's also a fun way to learn how to act."
LENGTH: Medium: 63 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Cindy Pinkston. 1. Steve Earle (center) leads drama campby CNBparticipants in a movement exercies. 2. Anisah Rasheed, 11, portrays
an Arabian dancer and recites her monologue during a drama camp at
Mill Mountain Theatre. color.