Organizers of Brookhaven Little Theatre’s summer drama camp arenot only looking toward the future of the Haven, but also towardthe future of their campers.

“Number one, building on the future of our theater, it’s all afundraiser for Save the Haven and we’re investing in the futuregenerations of the theater,” said camp organizer Jana Russell. “Butalso for the children, it teaches them to be comfortable on stage,to learn theater etiquette, and to have love for theater itself.Also getting comfortable doing things in front of people helps kidsfor the future, for things like job interviews and speeches in highschool.”

The camp, which is held at the Haven each day for two weeks from9 a.m. to noon, teaches children basic theater skills such aslearning to project their voice and to develop a stage presence.Russell said the instruction they receive somewhat enhances thingsthat come naturally to children anyway.

“We’re building on the children’s natural ability to pretend,that’s all acting is is pretending to be something you’re not,” shesaid. “We do theater games and movement exercises, and they notonly learn things on stage, they also work on painting parts of theset, and some will be making costumes. I try to teach them a littleof everything.”

The two-week camp also has its own goal: at the end, thechildren will put on a production of Alice in Wonderland. Russellsaid in the five years she’s done the camp, the plays have gonesmoothly.

“Every year the kids have been able to get the roles they’vewanted, like if they want, we can give them parts with lines,” shesaid. “Some kids don’t want to say anything, they just want to beup there and be a cat or whatever, and we can accommodate that too.But this year, we’ve got a lot of little girls wanting to beAlice.”

The production will take place July 23 and 24 at 7 p.m. at theHaven. Admission will be $5, and season ticket holders can usetheir tickets to see the production.

Meanwhile, the children are doing their best to make sure therewill be a big turnout for their performance. Monday’s project wasto fingerpaint invitations to send to family and friends toannounce the play.

“That’s what they did today, they were making invitations tosend home, because it’s cool to get something in the mail thatyou’ve done,” Russell said, explaining that the children will bedoing other arts and crafts throughout the next fortnight aswell.

Russell said there are roughly 60 children in the camp thissummer, and that there are around 20 teenagers from Lincoln,Franklin and Copiah counties who volunteer to help as counselors.The camp costs $150 per camper, and the money goes in full to theSave the Haven fund.

“We’re raising money for renovations to our building,” she said.”It’s an old building and even though we’re trying to get grants,you still have to have the money up front to do things.”

Russell said camp organizers are also thankful to othervolunteers and businesses that have donated time, funds and otherthings to the camp in order to help the Haven and Brookhaven LittleTheatre.