The timeless tales of “101 Dalmatians” and “Beauty and the Beast” — popular stories handed down over multiple generations of childhood — will take on a different hue this theater season when interwoven with the sounds, speech and scenery created by the students of Kerry Onxley.

Onxley, director of both The Children’s Theatre Company and Westlake High School Theatre, has spent his multiple-decade career training, teaching and mentoring students who wish to pursue or at least explore the possibility of a professional career performing on stage in theater.

This year will be no different.

The Children’s Theatre Company will be producing “101 Dalmatians” in the spring.

Onxley said the students will be rehearsing at their temporary studio inside Erdace Apartments in downtown Lake Charles while renovations continue at their beloved stomping grounds, Central School Arts & Humanities Center. The center was heavily damaged two years ago when Hurricane Laura made landfall in Southwest Louisiana.

“We last performed ‘101 Dalmatians’ seven years ago and it’s a really fun show, plus who doesn’t love dogs? Also, Disney has been working on a live-action remake of it so we felt it was a good time to do our version of it,” Onxley said. “We thought it would be a cute thing to do.”

The play will follow the same plot as the film, but in a condensed version.

“I think the emphasis on the new movie, which is on Cruella De Vil, will be a similar direction we will take, too — a bad guy approach to it,” he said. “We live in a society that sometimes gravitates toward the bad guy and so doing something to entertain the audience that includes a villain against something everyone loves, like dogs, made sense. It was an easy choice.”

Onxley said when picking a production, he and the students base their selection on three things — what the students what to do, what the audience wants to see and what the director wants to do.

“ ‘101 Dalmatians’ fits all three,” he said.

Onxley said about 20 Children’s Theatre students will be involved in bringing the performance to life. An additional 20 students involved in Westlake High School’s theater program will be lending
a hand.

“Our technical theater class at Westlake is very much involved,” he said. “Our Westlake actors become mentors for our younger kids at Children’s Theatre. It works out super and both sets of kids like it.”

Onxley said the next Children’s Theatre acting class — designed to teach beginning and advanced students —will be available starting at the end of September and is open to children ages 5 to 18. Class work involves musical theater performance with an emphasis on acting, singing and dancing. Each student will participate in the “101 Dalmatians” production in February.

Children’s Theatre participants will also be dressed as Disney characters for meet-and-greet opportunities with attendees of the city of Lake Charles Halloween festival in October and again during the company’s annual Cinderella’s Holiday Dining event in December.

Onxley said his Westlake students are gearing up for a November production of “Beauty and the Beast.”

“It will be my sixth time to produce it and the third time at Westlake High School,” Onxley said. “This is a favorite love story by both child and adult and the Westlake High Theatre program is delighted to bring it to life on stage.”

Onxley said enrollment in both of the programs he oversees has increased in the past year.

“It’s outstanding and an exciting time,” he said. “Theater is really alive in Southwest Louisiana at the moment.”