"All Grown Up!"

   Great story in the Herald-Dispatch today by Bill Rosenberger about last night's phenomenal All Grown Up Benefit Concert, which brought back some of First Stage Theatre's talented alumni to kick off that group's fundraising efforts. You can read that story right here - there's also a gallery of photos by Mark Webb right here.

   Here's the story: 

   Huntington native J.T. Walker is a singer and actor whose natural talents would likely have led him to where he is now, serving as an actor, manager and administrator at Shadowbox Live in Columbus, Ohio.

   But the 2000 graduate of Huntington High School gives a lot of credit for his development to First Stage Theatre Company, which has provided the Tri-State area with a children's theater since 1990.

Now in its 23rd year, First Stage Theatre held a benefit concert Saturday night called All Grown Up. The performance featured a host of former actors and singers who have gone on to careers in the arts, medicine and law, among others. The group convened at the Keith-Albee Performing Arts Center in Huntington, where Walker and many others sang and told the audience -- comprised of youth involved in the group's current show The Little Mermaid, Jr. and community members -- the impact First Stage had on their lives.

   "This was my second family, where all my best friends and interactions were," Walker said. "That's what I looked forward to every week. This gives so many people an opportunity to have an outlet in the arts."

   Others who took part in the reunion concert were Mary Ellen Wolfe, a professional acrobat and singer; Kathryn Davis, a local attorney who recently starred as Elle Woods in Huntington Outdoor Theatre's Legally Blonde: the Musical, Josh Meredith, a senior theater major at Marshall University; Sarah Hayes, a junior dance major and theater minor at Radford University; Eric Newfeld, a junior at Marshall; Bronson Bush, a professional songwriter and performer; Justin McElroy, the managing editor of the Polygon video game site; Sydnee Smirl McElroy, an attending physician and assistant professor at Marshall University's Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine; Jessica Lamp Jordan, who works in higher education; Levi Kelly, who recently starred as Horton in Seussical; along with actors Jonathan Lamp, Jennifer Leist, Zach Davis, Robyn Welch and Meag Elkins Muller.

   Proceeds from Saturday night's event will be used in transforming First Stage's new space on 2nd Street and 7th Avenue from a warehouse to a full working theater with classrooms and a stage, said First Stage president Chuck Minsker. He said it will help to provide a theatrical program for children that could lead to more fulfilling a dream to perform on stage.

   "As far as community theater goes, children's theater flies under the radar," Minsker said. "The talent here is really amazing."