By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post

The Hays Community Theatre was filled with music and laughter during a special theater camp organized by a Thomas More Prep-Marian junior this week.

What is unique about this camp is that all 20 campers are developmentally disabled adults.

Annie Wasinger, 16, has been working to pull the camp together for about a year. She has been actively involved in community theater from the tender age of 3. However, she noted her older brother, Joel, who has cerebral palsy, could only listen to her belt out show tunes and run lines, but never participate himself.

When the HCT installed a handicap accessible bathroom at its new venue on Eighth Street, the idea struck her to organize the camp.

“I was really excited about it, because I thought he could finally come to shows. That would be so good. I thought more about it, and thought if he can come to shows, he has always wanted to perform. But in all 13 years I have been with Hays Community Theatre, we have only had one person in a wheelchair, and it wasn’t my brother. I thought it would be really cool to create a camp for everybody in the community,” she said.

“Since it is Hays Community Theatre, I think we should branch out and be here for any individual whether they have a disability or not.”

Students at TMP have special time during their school day called “20 time” during which the students are encouraged to work on a community service project or learn a new skill. Wasinger chose to use that time to organize the Center Stage camp. She wrote grants, sought donations, organized a presentation to the HCT board and found a curriculum from an online company, Fourth Wall, specially geared for adults with disabilities.

Her mother, Becky, who is also her brother’s limited license provider, said she has been impressed with Annie’s commitment and efforts to organize the camp.

The camp runs Monday through Friday this week, culminating in a free hour-long public performance at 6 p.m. Friday at Celebration Community Church.

“I really want to press we need the community to support this and come to the show,” Annie said. “Each [camper] is so very excited to have their chance on stage and feel the way you do when you get audience reaction.”

The campers are participating in a variety of games to help them learn about acting, theater and stage directions.

“We teach them there are three aspects of theater — singing, dancing and acting,” Wasinger said. “So we are going to do three acting pieces. We have one where everyone is a superhero, and that is a little skit. Then we have one where everyone is a detective. Then we have an actual script that is 20 minutes long, and it is called ‘The Princess and the Dance Crew.’ ”

“Princess and the Dance Crew” is a variation of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.” Also on Friday, one camper will also sing “What a Wonderful World” as the rest of the campers sign the words.

So far this week, the campers have played four corners using stage directions. They played Pass the Hat on Tuesday. Each person put on a police hat and had to say something a police officer would say. Pictures were projected on a screen for a game called Act it Out, and the campers had to act out a scene based on the image. The campers had to pretend they were eating spaghetti or pretend they were a bunny, etc. The campers will also do a variety of improv exercises.

Annie has been concluding the camp sessions daily with a game, A Minute of Fame. Each camper comes in front of an audience of other campers, care staff and volunteers, and they can sing, dance or tell a story. On Tuesday, the campers chose to sing.

Annie worked with DSNWK to hand pick about half of the campers from the Reed Center. The others came from the community. She said the campers from the Reed Center spend most of their time in a classroom setting.

“They don’t usually get time to truly display all their talents and do stuff individually,” Wasinger said, “So when we do stuff like One Minute of Fame, they are so excited to get the chance to go up in front of everybody and sing. I think acting is escapism. I think everybody needs that. I think it has been really nice for them to come everyday and know that they are going to have fun. …

“For me, it has been really cool because I have known most of these people all of my life through Joel, and I have seen them break out of their shells.”

One of the campers, David, wanted to talk about his horse, so he got up in front of the audience and neighed.

“I have been so impressed by going over scripts and seeing how they inflect lines,” Wasinger said. “The stuff they have done there — it has just been really important. … I think it is just good to see what they can do, since it is something they have never been given the opportunity to do.”

Staff from the Reed Center have accompanied their clients, and the camp has about 40 additional volunteers. Annie said everyone seems to be having fun.

“I think people my age are benefiting so much because they are volunteers … I am fortunate that I have had the background that I have with people with disabilities, but a lot of these people are coming from my youth groups or church or I know them from school and theater or I know them from another background. I think it is so cool for them to interact with people with disabilities because they never have before. I have been really proud of my volunteers for how they have worked together.”

Wasinger said she hopes the Center Stage camp can become an annual event.