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 Monmouth, Litchfield and another school west of Gardiner, with elementary students as actors.

Needed are six theater directors and three art directors who are enthusiastic, committed and reliable, and who would have transportation to the schools by 3 p.m. The TESS program operates from February to early May, two-week sessions, three days a week.

Interviews will take place this month. Teens may contact Johnson Hall Executive Director Judy Lloyd for an application and interview, at 582-7144 or e-mail [email protected], or come in person to 280 Water St., Gardiner.

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 then be introduced to elementary schoolchildren who have signed up for TESS, a 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.

TESS is financially supported this year by Helen and George Ladd Charitable Corp. For more information, call 582-7144; or visit www.johnsonhall.org.