Nonprofit will put on production of Annie in May

Applause Children’s Theater, a nonprofit located in Paso Robles, was one of five Central Coast organizations to receive grants from KSBY and its partners — Halpin Leadership Industries, The Manse on Marsh and Idler’s Home — in its annual Your Favorite Charity contest. A total of 76 nominations were received —the most ever — and the nominations were paired down to 21 by a panel of judges. From those 21 organizations, the public had a period of time to vote for their favorite nonprofits.
At the beginning of March, KSBY announced the awardees: Grand prize winner of $10,000: Family Care Network Winners of $1,000 each: Applause Children’s Theater, Royal Family Kids Camp of Santa Barbara, Pacific Wildlife Care and Jack’s Helping Hand. “We were really excited [getting the award and] being a young nonprofit,” Applause Children’s Theater founder and director Vikki Mullin said, adding that the award will go toward the organization’s next production, which will take place in May.
Mullin started the nonprofit in 2016 and the first show, Wizard of Oz, took place in 2017. The show in 2018 was Peter Pan and this year’s is Annie Jr. “The premise of [Applause Children’s Theater] is that all children are stars,” Mullen said. “All children that register for auditions are automatically cast in the play. Auditions are for me to cast the leads.” The children who are a part of the theater are in the first grade through high school.
“My goal is to have them on stage as much as possible,” Mullin said, adding that she double casts the leads, so that more children are able to learn what it means to be a lead actor. She splits the number of show that the actor is the lead. While there were 58 kids in the first production, the 2018 and 2019 productions have 80 children.
The upcoming production of Annie Jr. will take place Friday, May 3 and 10 at 7 p.m. and Saturday, May 4 and 11 at 1 and 6 p.m. at Flamson Middle Schools. Tickets are $15 each. Mullin said the organization is looking for more sponsors for Annie Jr. “It’s couldn’t be done without the support of the community,” she said. Tickets are available on EventBrite.com and search for “Applause Children’s Theater.”
For more about Applause Children’s Theater and the summer camp will put on in the summer, go to ApplauseChildrensTheater.com.