Carl Brook
  • Theatre Arts BA
  • Gainesville, GA

Carl Brook from Gainesville, Ga., Participates in 'Giant Peach' Theater Production at Brenau University

2011 Sep 28

Carl Brook from Gainesville, Ga., Will be part of the set construction crew in the Gainesville Theatre Alliance WonderQuest production of the stage adaptation of the children's classic "James and the Giant Peach," scheduled to run Sept. 29-Oct. 7 in Brenau University's historic Pearce Auditorium. Brook is a freshman at Brenau majoring in theater arts with a musical theater emphasis.

Brenau collaborates with Gainesville State College in the Gainesville Theatre Alliance, which for three decades has brought high-level drama and musical performances involving students, community theater amateurs and professionals to stages at the two institutions. WonderQuest is GTA's organization, the only one of its kind North Georgia, dedicated to offering professionally-produced theater specifically for children and their families. Each production is performed in the historic Brenau University opera house, Pearce Auditorium, for family audiences and more than 7,000 students from schools throughout northeast Georgia.

The WonderQuest production of "James and the Giant Peach" celebrates the 50th anniversary of a classic in children's literature, the popular 1961 children's novel by British author Roald Dahl, which was transformed into the 1996 Disney film. Adapted from the novel by playwright David Wood and directed by Gay Hammond, assistant professor of theater at Brenau University, the play focuses on a young English orphan boy whose misadventures with a magic potion he acquires to escape his abusive and repulsive guardian aunts, Spiker and Sponge, sets him off on a surreal cross-world adventure inside a giant peach.

The play, scheduled to run from Sept. 29 to Oct. 7 in Brenau University's Historic Pearce Auditorium at 500 Centennial Circle, in Gainesville, Ga. In addition to family performances (scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Sept. 30 and Oct. 1, 7 and 8, and at 2:30 p.m. Oct. 2), Wonderquest targets its productions to school groups with school matinees (scheduled at 9:30 and 11:30 a.m. Sept, 29, 30 and Oct. 5, 6 and 7. Tickets for performances are $10-12 for adults and $7-8 for students. Wonderquest also scheduled immediately following the performances a meet-the-actors reception Sept. 30 and an ice cream social with the cast Oct. 2.

ABOUT BRENAU – Founded in 1878, Brenau University currently enrolls about 2,800 students in graduate and undergraduate programs on campuses and online. With a curriculum that blends professional preparation informed by the liberal arts, Brenau degree tracks range from Associate of Arts, which includes a special "early college" program for exceptional high school-age students to terminal degrees, including a Master of Fine Arts in Interior design and a Doctor of Nursing Practice. The main campus of the Georgia-based liberal arts institution, which includes the Brenau Women's College, is in Gainesville with other campuses in Augusta, Kings Bay and in two metro Atlanta locations, Norcross and Fairburn. Brenau's 2011 ranking as one of the top 15-best higher education values in the Southeast by U.S. News & World Report marks the university's sixth consecutive year in that position for the magazine's America's Best Colleges guidebook. Brenau University also has been cited as one of the best universities in the Southeast by The Princeton Review. The Chronicle of Higher Education accorded Brenau "honor roll" status as one of the top 10 best colleges and universities to work in its 2011-12 survey rankings.