By MICHAEL BOYLAN
Weekend Editor

Admit it — your child is a ham.

Whether telling jokes, telling stories or making excuses, children are natural performers. Now you can enhance and encourage their talents with several workshops that will be conducted by some of the local theater groups in the coming weeks.

Fayette Community Theater will offer three classes for children starting with introduction to stage acting Friday, Dec. 3. The class is for the beginning actor who wants to experience many aspects of stage acting for the first time. Areas that will be covered are voice, movement, characterization, makeup and auditioning. The workshop will run from 5-7 p.m. and will cost $25.

On the following Friday, Fayette Community Theater will offer the workshop, the art of auditioning. This is the most popular of Fayette Community Theater's workshops and allows participants 8-12 to explore all the techniques of a proper audition. All of the students will participate in a mock audition at the conclusion of the class, which runs 5-8 p.m. Friday, Dec. 10.

The final workshop in December is a two-day class called Christmas reader's theater with performance. Young performers 9 - 13 will learn all the qualities of reader's theater as they create characters vocally, enhance their vocal skills and prepare a presentation for production. The workshop will be 5-7 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Dec. 17 and 18. The participants will present two pieces of reader's theater at the conclusion of the class. The cost of the workshop is $40.

All three workshops will be at the Peachtree City Library and require advanced registration. The workshops will be instructed by Tammy Barton, the artistic director for Fayette Community Theater.

Offshoot Productions also will offer some workshops at the Peachtree City Library during December. Comic improvisation I and II will be offered Dec. 4 and 5. The courses are open to people 15 and older.

Comic improvisation I is scheduled for Saturday, Dec. 4 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Comic improvisation II will be 2-5 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 5. The cost for each class is $18. If you register for both classes you may receive a $2 discount.

Offshoot Productions also will conduct auditions for its apprentice play, “Beanie and the Bamboozling Book Machine.” Auditions will be by appointment only from 2-5 p.m. at the Peachtree City Library Saturday, Dec. 4. Apprentices, who range from age 12 through adult, may include any nonprofessional actor, whether experienced or new to the stage, or anyone interested in the technical aspects of theater. The play will open in March.

Apprentice application forms must be submitted by Dec. 1, in order for the applicant to be scheduled Dec. 4. For information about the workshops or apprentice auditions, call Susan Steadman, artistic director of Offshoot Productions, at 770-631-2362 or e-mail to offshootpr@aol.com.

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