Local school children wrote stories and then got to see them enacted on the stage again this year, as The Story Store was presented at Williams Baptist University.
The Story Store is an annual children’s theatre production co-produced by Williams Baptist University Theatre and Northeast Arkansas Educational Cooperative. This year the play took place on the campus of WBU in the newly renovated Startup Chapel on Feb. 27-28.
“Gifted and talented students from the educational cooperative schools send me stories, and I put them into a play,” said Melinda Williams, assistant professor of communication arts at WBU and director and playwright of the play. “This year the play’s theme was about change. Since we were moving the production to Startup Chapel, we changed the look of the store setting.”
According to the director, the production has been in existence for approximately 26 years. “The Story Store has been performed with a standard set of characters appearing in the play throughout the years. Approximately 12 schools participated this year with about 29 stories selected to be performed from those schools,” Williams said.
The store boasts of “sparking imaginations and promoting creativity,” Williams explained. “I wanted to give the students a creative outlet, maybe a way to express themselves that they never tried. I had a student in one of my classes at WBU whose stories were a part of The Story Store when she was in elementary school,” Williams said. “The play sticks with you.”
WBU student actors involved in the production included Alyssa Burnett of Bald Knob, Kendal LeQuieu of Cabot, Macy Miller of Jonesboro and Molly Tabor of Walnut Ridge.
Williams is a private, Christian university in Walnut Ridge.
Photo attached: Stories written by local schoolchildren are brought to life onstage in The Story Store. Left to right: Molly Tabor, Alyssa Burnett, Kendal LeQuieu, Macy Miller and Melinda Williams during a performance of the play in WBU’s Startup Chapel.