MILLSTONE — Wild things happened in the middle school last week.
A forest grew, monsters appeared and a child king led a wild rumpus on the auditorium stage. All of this took place under the direction of Millstone’s Gina Whalen.
“We can keep creative learning going in the summer,” Whalen said. “There’s a lot of kids interested in the theater arts. We have this beautiful facility and we should utilize it as much as we can.”
Whalen directed Millstone Community Education’s Creative Theater Camp, which ended with a production of “Where The Wild Things Are” on July 22. Throughout the weeklong program, campers participated in theater games and exercises, created costumes and scenery and rehearsed for the final production.
“I hope they learned how much work goes into a show,” Whalen said. “I also hope they took away basic theater terminology, etiquette and basic skills that an actor would need. They also had hands-on experience creating scenery and costumes.”
Whalen said the children were familiar with “Where The Wild Things Are” and the story was sparse enough to give them room to develop their characters and learn to improvise. Community Education Director Barbara Schulze and Millstone Township Middle School seventh-grader Jamie White assisted with the production.
“My favorite part is when Max is with wild things and he tells them to go to bed without supper and they all stick their tongues out,” White said.
White served as assistant director of the production, as she has been a member of the stage crew for multiple middle school productions and wanted to learn more. She also worked with Whalen on the school’s last production of “Pinocchio.”
Whalen said, “I served as assistant director on ‘Pinocchio,’ which led me to this.”
Parents watched the directors’ week of work culminate in Laura DePinho, Courtney Burden, Alyssa Hack, Emilia Cunninghman, Ayla Dlugosz, Corrine Mendelsohn, Jacob Mendelsohn and Maeve Touhey transformation into wild things in the arts center on Friday afternoon. While they all turned back into children once they left the stage, part of them will always remain a thespian thanks to the camp.