Aug. 13—YOUNGSTOWN — The lights in the Jewish Community Center's multipurpose room dim as the audience waits for the show to begin. Some twenty feet in front of the stage, about 150 kids, many of them enrollees in the JCC's ten-week summer camp, sit crosslegged in rows of ten or twelve, chattering quietly.

Behind the campers, six rows of chairs reach most of the way to the back of the room, many of these filled by adults. A long table pushed against the rear wall is stocked with donuts, pitchers of water and small plastic cups.

Minutes before the production is set to begin, Barb Wilson and the play's director, JCC theater instructor Laney Sanger, stand up to address the crowd, eliciting a quick round of applause.

"We had two weeks to put together a musical that would normally take months to rehearse," Sanger chides the audience. "So if you notice any flubbed lines ... be kind."

Wilson, the JCC arts and cultural director, agrees.

"I love that you're already clapping," she tells the audience. "Your job is to encourage the cast. That's what we want to do for them."

With that, Wilson and Sanger return to their seats, and as music swells, several older campers take the stage, one or two at a time, most wearing shorts or bluejeans and pink t-shirts bearing the JCC logo. They assemble near the middle, two in front and five in back, dancing from left to right as they launch into the play's opening song and dance number.

A few minutes later, the show's first act complete, the cast members leap from the stage, each landing in a crouch about ten feet from the kids seated in front. One girl does a series of sideways somersaults, obscuring her castmates briefly as she cartwheels in front of the stage.

And that's just Camp Rock: Day 1.

'A ton of flexibility'Wilson, who worked as a Head Start teacher and reading intervention specialist in Ellwood City, Lawrence County, before joining the JCC, now oversees instructors in music, dance, theater, and visual arts as the Jewish Community Center's arts and culture director.

Wilson is looking to expand the JCC's offerings, which includes dance and fitness classes, an e-sports program, a ten-week summer camp, and within that summer program, a collection of short specialty camps allowing kids to explore specific areas of interest, like theater.

The Aug. 5 show is a performance of "Camp Rock, Jr.", a condensed adaptation of the 2008 Disney film, put on by members of the JCC's theater specialty camp.

"We wanted to do something that combined visual arts, music, dance and theater to help get them ready for the fall school musicals," Wilson says. "For two weeks, for three hours a day, we took 12 fifth- through eighth-graders and put on a production."

The program's guitar, vocal, violin and piano instructors — all graduates of Youngstown State University's Dana School of Music — worked with the cast in a variety of areas, says Wilson, including singing and stage presence. Dance teacher Hayley Gelzheiser, meanwhile, choreographed the show's dance numbers.

The JCC's summer camp, which runs from June through August, recently underwent a bit of an overhaul. Whereas previously students had to register for the entire ten-week course, now they can register by the week.

"It gives families a ton of flexibility," Wilson says. "We've actually seen a huge increase in the number of campers."

Camp Rock: Day 2As the play's second act begins, the plot starts to get rolling.

"You're gonna find your own style, and your own voice," Camp Rock's head counselor tells a group of new campers. They'll also find competition from the kids at Camp Star, a rival music-themed summer camp run by the Camp Rock leader's treacherous former bandmate, Axel Turner.

For a while it seems hopeless. Axel offers the Camp Rock counselors double their current salary to come and work for him, leading several traitors to jump ship. A defeated head counselor tells the remaining kids the camp will have to shut down.

"I've been up all night trying to find replacements," she says.

Down but not out, the campers launch into another rousing dance number. "We can't back down!" they chant repeatedly, in unison, before devising a "top-secret plan to infiltrate Camp Star."

As the second act closes, a musician seated to the right of the stage turns the large sign standing several feet in front of her in a quick half-circle, signaling a shift in setting from Camp Rock to Camp Star.

Founded on Jewish valuesThe JCC offers more than just classes in music and theater, however.

There's a Jewish-themed film festival and book club, and the JCC helps the PJ Library, run by a Massachusetts-based Jewish nonprofit, distribute free books to kids in Greater Youngstown and western Pennsylvania.

"We're founded on Jewish values," Wilson says. "Those values carry through everything that we do."

Membership is open to the public, however, providing access to the center's broad selection of arts and culture-based programming to residents of all ages.

Programming which includes visual arts classes taught by Nina Battaglia, a part-time instructor with a background in print media and ceramics who also does marketing and curatorial work for a museum in Warren.

"We have a kiln, so we've been doing a lot of ceramics classes, mosaic classes, and glass fusing," Battaglia says.

Glass fusing involves gathering scraps of multi-colored glass and attaching them with glue.

"Then we fire up the kiln and fuse them together," Battaglia says. "You can make suncatchers, pendants, key chains, and really any kind of jewelry."

Mosaics, meanwhile, are made by using the kiln to attach geometric glass shapes to a piece of wood or ceramic tile.

"It's sort of like putting together a puzzle," Battaglia says. "Only you make it up."

Battaglia will be teaching a mixed media collage course on Aug. 18, and plans to offer a workshop where students will make stamps out of colored leaves later in the fall. A two-day 'Cider and Ceramics' class on Oct. 12 and 26 will see participants making and glazing their own ceramic sculptures while enjoying alcoholic and non-alcoholic cider.

"I feel like a lot of people are interested in the arts in this area," Battaglia says. "Which is why I think it's great that the JCC has an arts and culture program."

Battaglia's art classes are open to students of all ages and abilities, she says.

"Art is one of the most human things you can do," says Battaglia. "Art has no age limit."

Her favorite part of teaching the classes, however, is the influence it's had on her own artwork.

"It keeps me thinking creatively. Everybody has different ideas, and it's very inspiring," Battaglia says. "I always feel inspired after teaching a class."

Rock StarsAs the play nears its conclusion, a tween romance blooms between two star-crossed friends — one at Camp Rock, the other at Camp Star — leading to a cute scene of one camper serenading the other while "playing" a floppy orange prop guitar.

During the climax, the kids of Camp Rock and Camp Star face off in an epic tournament composed of dueling song and dance numbers. Choreographer Hayley Gelzheiser stands near the back of the room, miming the movements of the cast on stage and swaying to the rhythm of the music. The kids in the audience stand and clap along in unison as the Camp Rockers sing "This is What We Came Here For."

The kids of Camp Star, finally, bring the show to a close, singing "This is our summer — this is our song."

Guitar heroMike Miller has been teaching guitar and piano at the JCC since September 2021. He was hired by the previous arts and culture director after she saw him playing at the DeYor Performing Arts Center in downtown Youngstown.

"I was playing 'The Color Purple' when I met her," Miller says.

Miller's guitar classes are fairly informal.

"We find a good time, we get together, we meet for a 30-minute session and see what we can learn," Miller says. "It's hard to teach, because it's never the same for anybody. and man, does it take a while. It's a process of getting to know who I'm working with, what they like, and what kind of direction I can guide them in. But it's a great time."

"The time it takes discourages a lot of people," Miller says. "But once you pick it up, the whole world is open to you."

He's had students aged five all the way up into their 70s, Miller says. But his favorite part of working at the JCC is working with the kids.

"I never thought I'd like teaching," Miller says. "But seeing a kid pick something up that you've taught them — especially when it's something you're passionate about. You get to give that to someone. It's like nothing else."

'Art can be for anybody'The lights come up as the cast members assemble on stage and take a bow.

Then, as the kids in the audience get ready to start filing out of the room, and into the buses waiting outside, Wilson begins the Shabbat ceremony, passing out candles, grape juice and bits of bread. Wilson leads the campers as they recite the words honoring the Jewish Day of Rest, in recognition of the seventh day of creation, when God himself rested.

With the JCC's summer programming slate drawing to a close, Wilson is about to release the center's fall schedule, which includes an art exhibition by Nina Battaglia, set for Sept. 13th; two six-week theater courses, one an acting class and the other a musical theater workshop; and dance classes covering genres like ballet, tap, jazz and hip hop.

There's more Wilson wants to bring to the JCC, however, most of it centering around a strong focus on inclusion. A dance class called "Movement for All Mobilities" will focus on those with physical limitations, while a "Sensory-Friendly Sunday" art class will bring members in when the lights are dim and "it's really calm in the building," she says.

"We're looking at making a lot of accommodations," Wilson says. "Art can be for absolutely anybody. So we wanna make sure we're making those opportunities available."

To join the Youngstown Jewish Community Center or learn about its programs, call the front desk at 330-746-3250, or visit www.jccyoungstown.org.

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