By Ben Orcutt -- Daily Staff Writer

FRONT ROYAL — Children's theater is coming to town, and hopes are that local performances will spur a revival of interest in live productions.

Five Rings Very Little Theatre at Five Rings Arts & Education Centre, at 620 Virginia Ave., is hosting five plays for children during the 2008-09 season.

"Androcles and the Lion," adapted by Aurand Harris for the stage from "Aesop's Fables," is playing at Five Rings. The play is about a runaway Roman slave, Androcles, who befriends a lion that has a thorn in its paw, according to a press release.

Androcles has humorous encounters with his master, Pantalone, a bumbling captain. There's also the story of lovers Isabella and Leilo escaping. In the end, Androcles winds up in the coliseum versus the lions for a Roman spectacle.

The six-character cast is made up of junior and senior theater majors at Shenandoah University. Bradley Rakushin, a 21-year-old senior from Frederick, Md., plays Leilo.

"It was very well-received by the kids and the parents," Rakushin says of the production, adding that what makes children's theater enjoyable is the actors get to see the children's faces up close in an intimate setting.

Loren Ferster, a 20-year-old junior from Reedsville, Pa., who plays Isabella, says this is her first exposure to children's theater and sometimes it's difficult to keep from laughing when the children are cutting up.

"Yeah, it's really hard because they just kind of yell stuff," she says.

Rachel Waldman, 20, of Downingtown, Pa., plays the Lion.

"I really like the small space and communicating with the kids, and my part's really fun because I actually like get to really talk to them and I can like make one-on-one contact," Waldman says. "It's kind of challenging because kids lose focus really, really easily and it's just fun to try to keep their attention."

David Bazemore, 21, of Philadelphia, plays Pantalone, an evil character.

"I like playing evil characters," Bazemore says. "I like performing in front of children. I feel that it's good to inspire the younger kids. Maybe someone watching our performance may want to do this when they grow up. I know that's how I was inspired. I saw a production of 'Beauty and the Beast.'"

Joel Piper, 21, of Loudoun County, portrays the Captain.

"I like playing those kinds of roles because they're pretty much straightforward," Piper says. "So much is said about them through what they say about themselves. ... I think it's fun. I either scare the children or they think it's ridiculous because I'm the coward. The Captain's actually a coward."

When the Lion roars, Piper says his character cowers.

"I think it's fun because the kids give exactly what reaction you would expect," he says. "'Oh he's not scary at all. Ha, ha, ha. He's just a baby!' You kind of laugh at yourself on stage because it's silly."

Andy Crosten, 21, of Cumberland, Md., plays Androcles.

"It's a lot of physical humor," he says of the production. "It's a lot of comedic timing."

Like his cast members, Crosten says he hopes to become a professional actor. The Shenandoah students are not allowed to get paid, but Crosten says it's not all about the money anyway.

"I think we're like some of the luckiest people in the world because we get to do what we love, hopefully for a living," he says. "We get to play and we get to entertain people and we get to make a difference not only in their day, sometimes their life, the way they view things. It's an especially gratifying experience to know that you can have that effect on a person by doing what you love to do."

Piper says the cast has their timing down pat.

"You know everything's going right even if you're not paying attention to it that much because it's just happening," he says. "That just comes from working on something so well together."

Rakushin adds that performing children's theater gives the students an opportunity to learn a valuable skill.

"So much of theater is improv," he says. "Like whenever something goes wrong or you have to just think of something on the spot to cover for somebody, children's theater is a great way to learn that particular skill. It's a skill that you basically have to learn because anything could happen. A little kid could run up on stage or something and you have to be able to deal with things like that."

Bazemore says that being an actor helps him academically.

"I find myself memorizing stuff from school a whole lot easier," he says.

Ferster agrees that acting is a labor of love.

"We love doing this, and you have to love it to do this," she says. "It does get really hard."

Sally Anderson, an adjunct professor of theater at Shenandoah University and the director of Five Rings Arts & Education Centre, says she hopes the children's theater will be a revival of live theater.

"I don't think there's even been children doing theater for other children publicly," she says of the Front Royal venue. Her hope, she says, is that, "it would bring in the kids and the parents and the grandparents who would then come like to come and see some of the other shows once they got hooked. I want children to come and see live theater so that in the next 10 years from now we have an audience because at the moment, it's dying out."

Anderson says she's enjoying working with the cast, and they have developed their characters beyond her expectations.

"They've been fantastic," she says. "I've worked with all of them before."

If her role as director is analogous to a coach, Anderson says her "team" is delivering the goods.

"Acting is the best team sport," she says. "It really is because although you are a team when you play a sport, you are also very much an individual and when you do a play, you are not. You are totally the team. You cannot [have] an ego, you cannot stand alone and that I think is a wonderful thing to be part of."

"Androcles and the Lion" will be performed Saturday and again on Oct. 4 at 1:30 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. Tickets are $5. Other remaining plays are: "Totally Red!," Nov. 1, 8, 15, 22; "Best Christmas Pageant Ever," Dec. 6,13, 20, 21; "You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown," Feb. 7, 14, 21, 28; and "Johnny Moonbeam and The Silver Arrow," April 4, 11, 18, 25. For more information, call Five Rings Arts & Education Centre at 636-2787 or e-mail Anderson at info@fiveringsartseducation.org.

Contact Ben Orcutt at borcutt@nvdaily.com