Now in its 22nd year, the Childrens Summer Theatre Workshop is once again providing local kids with a soup-to-nuts understanding of how to stage a play.
Founded in the 1990s by former Bowlus executive director Susan Raines, the tacit mission of CSTW is to instill in the communitys youngest members a love of the performing arts and the confidence to know that, however miniature their frames were looking at you third-graders theres a place for them onstage.
But the groups first imperative, said John Higginbotham, CSTWs current creative director, is even simpler than that, although no less essential. At our big meeting, I told our CSTW workers volunteers from the theatrical glitterati at Iola High School that our goals involve a couple of things: we hope the kids will fall in love with the arts, but we are really here for them to have fun.