By Beth Trapani

POTTSTOWN PA – Pottsgrove High School 10th-grader Ashleigh Kleinschmidt hopes to find a career in the theater, or perhaps interior design. She’s already got a leg up on the theater track: the 16-year-old has written a series of three short plays that will be performed early next month by students at Lower Pottsgrove Elementary School.

Ashleigh Kleinschmidt.

“I’m still toying with a title,” says Kleinschmidt, who also serves as student-director of the plays. “Flip-Flop Fairy Tales” is her leading candidate right now.

That’s because each play is a take-off on a classic: Cinderella, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and Sleeping Beauty. “There’s a twist to each one,” she says. “For instance, in Sleeping Beauty, when the prince goes to rescue her, she’s been awake all the time and is really moody and grumpy.”

Kleinschmidt is involved in theater at the high school, and has been dancing since third grade. She wrote the plays as part of her high school graduation project, which is required of all students in Pennsylvania. Graduation projects are meant to be meaningful experiences that give students an opportunity for in-depth learning on a self-selected topic. Projects are guided by high school faculty members and assessed by an evaluation team.

Jolynn Kleinschmidt, Ashleigh’s mother and a reading intervention tutor at Lower Pottsgrove, thought the plays would be perfect for her school’s drama club. Second-grade teacher Tom Yenchik directs the club, as well as musicals at Pottsgrove Middle School.

Yenchik, who first worked with Kleinschmidt in a middle school production of ‘High School Musical,’ describes the student as “a very hard worker. It is great to see her love for the arts grow.  I think she did a great job writing the play and working with the elementary students.”

Ten boys and 10 girls will perform the play. “It’s been a lot more work student-directing it than I actually thought it would be,” Kleinschmidt says. “You see something one way, but then you actually go to do it and it doesn’t quite work out that way. But it’s been extremely rewarding and a lot of fun.”

A show for parents and friends is scheduled for May 3 (2010; Monday) at 6:30 p.m. in Lower Pottsgrove Elementary, 1329 Buchert Rd., Pottstown PA. The actor students will perform for their school classmates the following day (Tuesday, May 4) at 9:15 a.m. and 12:30 p.m.

• This event has been added to The Post calendar.

Photo from the Fruitfly Files

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