In 1983 we organized
Peanut Butter & Jelly Theater, a troupe of high school students who work intensively
each summer with a visiting theater professional to produce a performance
promoting literacy. It began as a strictly local operation: the troupe toured
to five neighborhood playgrounds in Claiborne County, performing skits based
on folktales, nursery rhymes, poems and songs, and serving peanut butter and
jelly sandwiches and Kool-Aid after the performances.
Peanut
Butter & Jelly Theater
Since
that beginning, the troupe has performed also for organizations like the Mississippi
Theatre Association, the Mississippi Speech Association, the Mississippi Library
Association, the Fund for the Mid South, and dozens of
libraries,
boys and girls clubs, and nutrition sites all over the state. Four members of
the troupe have gone on to receive additional training as scholarship students
at Northwestern University's National High School Institute. In Summer 2002
we performed for 4352 children in 37 shows around the state.
