Storybook Theatre changes gears By Paul Curtis – The Garden Island The Storybook Theatre of Hawaii is going electronic. “The whole mission now is to create good media,” said Mark Jeffers, executive director, plotting the next 25 years of the
Storybook Theatre changes gears
By Paul Curtis – The Garden Island
The Storybook Theatre of Hawaii is going electronic.
“The whole mission now is to create good media,” said Mark Jeffers, executive director, plotting the next 25 years of the nonprofit organization. A gala parade, dampened a bit by those crazy Kaua‘i summertime showers, was held recently through Hanapepe town, celebrating the organization’s 25th anniversary.
While the organization has a storied history of offering classes in the performing and visual arts, now the focus is shifting to broadcast (radio and television) media, Jeffers explained.
The idea is to allow children to create scripts, stories and content, and use the electronic media to bring those stories to life, he said. The shift is from performing arts to media arts.
The parade showed the organization’s knowledge of the performing arts, which remains the basis now for the content for the creation of media-arts efforts, he continued.
The focus remains on children and education, allowing the images they create from the ground up to come alive electronically, he added.
Therefore, The Storybook Theatre’s facility in the heart of Hanapepe, on Hanapepe Road, includes the Spark M. Matsunaga Children’s Media Center, or “Sparky’s Place” for short, named for the late Hanapepe native and former U.S. senator and representative who worked tirelessly for world peace.
Both a national peace academy and a peace institute at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa carry Matsunaga’s name, so it is fitting that the facility in his hometown, which has the blessing of his family, also be a place where peace is practiced.
“We gotta study peace,” said Jeffers, who feels broadcast media can help international relations, and foster peace. Toward that end, a radio production class for teens may be offered at the center as soon as this fall, in collaboration with leaders of KKCR community radio in Princeville, who are interested in establishing a Westside presence, he explained. Over the years, The Storybook Theatre leaders have had no difficulty finding quality instructors for all types of classes, Jeffers said.
“I’m amazed how many great artists and teachers are on Kaua‘i,” and their willingness to give of themselves to help the next generation, he said.
Like all nonprofit organizations, The Storybook Theatre’s leaders continue what seems to be the never-ending search for funding to continue programs, he said. Still, Storybook leaders are gearing up now for fall Rainbow Academy of Art and Technology offerings, with registration going on now and classes beginning Tuesday, Sept. 7, as afternoon enrichment sessions.
Please call 335-0712 for registration and more information on those classes. “We want children to want to be here,” he said of the academy and other Storybook offerings as places where young people and their families want to participate. A bit later this year, there will be a children’s storytelling festival, at the Kauai Children’s Discovery Museum in Waipouli’s Kaua‘i Village shopping center, and a haunted house in Hanapepe near Halloween. The annual celebration of Robert Louis Stevenson’s birthday is set for Saturday, Nov. 13, with Jeffers once again in the title role, and next year theatre leaders will be heavily involved in a Kaua‘i international children’s film festival. Chances are that there will be several Kaua‘i entries in that festival, conceived, produced, directed and filmed at Sparky’s Place.
