Drama
Lights Up!
Who We Are
LIGHTS UP Theatre Troupe is made up of 8 high school students (freshmen through seniors) at Central Arkansas Christian who meet daily to develop, rehearse and polish performance material for two different repertoires: children’s theatre (appropriate for pre-K through 5th grade audience) and spiritually themed material for middle and high school students (appropriate for school chapel programs, church youth groups, and faith-based youth community organizations).
Lights Up operates as a service organization, offering performances and workshops free of charge to elementary schools, community organizations, developmental schools, children’s hospitals, faith-based schools, and churches. The troupe performs around Central Arkansas throughout the school year, typically doing 2-3 day tours in the fall and 2-3 day tours in the spring. In the month of April, the troupe typically does an out-of-state tour.
Lights Up Performances
Children’s Theatre Show
Our Children’s Theatre Repertoire consists of popular children’s stories, songs, fairy tales, fables, and poems (appropriate for pre-Kindergarten-5th grades). Examples Include:
Popular Children’s Literature & Poems:
- Miss Nelson is Missing by Harry Allard
- Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst
- Math Attack by Joan Horton
- SkippyJon Jones In the Doghouse by Judy Schachner
- Fancy Nancy (selections) by Jane O’Connor
- Nothing Ever Happens on My Block by Ellen Raskin
- Pierre: A Cautionary Tale by Maurice Sendak
- Polar Bear poem by Shel Silverstein
Aesop Fables: The Man Who Wanted Quiet, Tiger Man and Jackal
Fairy Tales & Nursery Rhymes: Little Red Riding Hood, The Gingerbread Man, Hickory Dickory Dock
Lights Up shows involve audience participation and interaction with troupe members. The performance is great for literacy and it’s high energy/high engagement. We exercise imagination throughout the show and incorporate student ideas or even get students/teachers/admin playing characters in a story (willing volunteers)! Performance time usually runs about 20-30 minutes. We don’t need any set up time (no props or costumes), just some open space. A gym or multipurpose room or auditorium all work well for Lights Up shows. We can even perform outside if the weather allows! We’re accustomed to performing without any microphones — we can typically project well enough in most spaces.
Workshop
Lights Up members will work with students to teach theatre games and activities that focus in Creative Dramatics — creating stage pictures/objects using body/voice/imagination; building a story using frameworks; focus/concentration/teamwork games to build ensemble. Typically we’ll break up into smaller groups to allow maximum participation for all the students involved. The students will be active/on their feet and creating together with the troupe throughout the whole workshop. Workshops are typically about 45 minutes to an hour maximum.
Middle School and High School Shows
We also offer a separate repertoire of spiritually-themed skits that are appropriate for middle & high school students. Our troupe devises/develops material centered on topics relevant to their peers with messages of spiritual encouragement based on Biblical principles. We typically perform this material in a chapel setting for our school or for other churches and Christian schools.
During the school year we perform at local public/private/charter schools, schools for students with learning or physical disabilities, hospitals, churches, and community organizations like Boys & Girls Clubs in the central Arkansas area. Lights Up operates as a service organization. We offer all performances and workshops free of charge. This service is educational for our students and a way for them to give back to the community.