GARDINER – Johnson Hall’s seventh annual Teen-Elementary School Shows program is seeking teens interested in theater and art for creative paid positions. Teens will help write, direct and produce plays in local schools with elementary students as the actors.

Needed are six theater directors and three art directors who are enthusiastic, skilled with elementary students, committed and reliable, and have their own transportation or can arrange it.

The program operates from February to early May, in two-week sessions, three days a week. Interviews will take place during January.

Teens can contact Johnson Hall Executive Director Judy Lloyd for an application and interview at 582-7144, johnsonhall@verizon.net or go to 280 Water St. The office will be closed Dec. 23 to Jan. 1.

This year Johnson Hall will offer the program to new communities in the region west of Gardiner. Monmouth schools are already involved.

Johnson Hall’s teen directors will work with professional Theater Director Kathleen Nation, and professional Art Director Yana Suponitskaya in late January to develop six scripts, based on literature chosen by the students and directors.

The plays will be introduced to elementary school kids who have signed up for the free two-week, after-school program. Some of the teens, working with small groups of students and supervised by Nation, will be directors of the short plays.

Several teen artists, supervised by Suponitskaya, will work with the “back-stage crew” of elementary students to design and execute the sets, costumes and props.

The program at each school will culminate in two theater productions, one presented during the school day to all the students at that school, and another in the evening, to parents and families. The program is financially supported this year by the Helen and George Ladd Charitable Corp.

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