East Lynne Theater Company Announces its 12th Annual Summer Student Workshop

]It's December, 1853 in Broek, Holland, and everyone is talking about the big ice-skating race and the silver pair of skates that is the prize. Hans and Gretel Brinker are two of the finest skaters in town, even though they are too poor to have proper skates. How they come to race and how their family fortunes are reversed are the subjects of the much beloved American classic, "Hans Brinker" or "The Silver Skates," written in 1865 by Mary Mapes Dodge.

East Lynne Theater Company, recently declared "one of the State's most important cultural treasures" by a Joint Legislative Resolution from the NJ Senate and General Assembly, is presenting "Hans Brinker," adapted by ELTC's artistic director, Gayle Stahlhuth, and directed by Robert LeMaire, for its Student Workshop Production. Assisting LeMaire are production assistants Michael Beebe and Elizabeth Buch.

ELTC's 12th Annual Student Workshop, where participants ages 10-16 perform after a 9-day rehearsal schedule, is much anticipated, and has yearly been seen by an appreciative standing-room-only audience. The performance of "Hans Brinker" is on Monday, July 2 at 8:00p.m., admission-free, at The First Presbyterian Church of Cape May, 500 Hughes Street, where the company is in residence.

The fee is only $200.00 to be included in this exciting Workshop, limited to twelve students, and rehearsals begin on Tuesday, June 19. For more information and to receive applications, call ELTC at 609-884-5898 or e-mail eastlynneco@aol.com. Applications can be downloaded directly by going to the company's web site, www.eastlynnetheater.org. Hit "Education" and there is a page below titled "Student Summer Workshop." Information on this web site includes the mainstage season and other events.

Currently on the mainstage, it's "A Year in the Trenches" running from May 16 - 26, followed by "An Evening with Amy Beach" on June 4, and a world premiere musical revue centered around the lyrics of the incredible Dorothy Fields, "On the Sunny Side of the Street," June 13 - July 21.