From The Benton Evening News - Feb.22, 2007

ROCK ISLAND - Three years ago, Harold Hill, played by Dillon Heape of Du Quoin, led the children into the world of the arts. This weekend, Heape led many of these same children to state - and won the state championship in Prose Reading.

Fifteen Pyramid Players' kids from “The Music Man” qualified for this year's IHSA State Finals. Heape also placed fifth in Dramatic Interpretation, while Benton's Trevor Girten and Josh Kimball placed seventh, one place out of the top six finalists.

Success stories such as this are not new for the Pyramid Players' community theatre group, based in Benton, and directed by Pam Kimball, Alisa Leffler and Susan Summers. Past directors also included John and Sara Wilkinson.

In the past 20 years that they have been producing children's theater, many of the Pyramid Players Kids have had huge successes. In the past seven years, five IHSA state speech champions have been Pyramid Players kids: Justin Kimball, Codey Girten, Beth Saxe and Natalie Mullen, all of Benton, and Heape of Du Quoin won the state title in their individual events. All of them were Pyramid Players Kids, Pam Kimball noted, and most have performed with them since they were very young.

Pyramid Players Kids have produced a huge number of all-state cast members who were privileged to perform at the Illinois High School Theatre Festival before crowds of thousands. Justin Kimball, Girten, Saxe, Mullen, Heape, Dan Ford, Michelle Edwards, Doug Overturf, Trevor Girten, Jennifer Durham, Nathan Mullen, Salina Wyant and Maggie Hart were among the few privileged to have this honor.
Nathan Herron, who was one of the contenders for American Idol and a member of the MUNY Kids in St. Louis, performed with the Pyramid Players for many years, and Jordan McCoy, one of the American Idol Junior finalists, was a member of the Pyramid Players' children's cast of “Carousel.”

Maggie Hart, a long time Pyramid Players Kid, and Dan Ford, also a long time Pyramid Player, recently performed with the St. Louis Rep. Codey Girten, a Pyramid Player since the age of 7, performed the role of Chip in the Broadway tour production of “Beauty and the Beast” at the Fox Theatre at the age of 9 and more recently performed with Stages in St. Louis. Codey also recently produced a musical he wrote at Indiana University.

Gary Joplin, assistant director for the first Pyramid Players' Kids show is dancing professionally in Germany and Adam Kee and A.J. Triano are both performing professionally in New York. Both were long standing Pyramid Players' Kids.

Countless other Pyramid Player kids can be seen in various forms of performance venues across the nation, collecting thousands of dollars in scholarship money for their performance abilities.
The question is, “Does being a Pyramid Players' Kid breed success, or do successful kids join Pyramid Players?”

“I don't know the answer to that question,” Pam Kimball said, “but I do know that performing at a young age teaches kids poise and stage presence. It also helps them to communicate and be outgoing in whatever career they choose. They are not afraid to go out into the world and meet new people and try new things.
“They also have friends and connections that stay with them for life. And it is probably the single largest factor for success in high school speech and theatre. I'm very proud to have been a part of that maturation process.”

Pyramid Players auditions for this summer's children's production of “Annie Get Your Gun” and high school/adult production of “Big River” will April 28 from 1 to 4 p.m. at Rend Lake College. For more information, call 439-9196 or 439-9692.