Jack and Tara Brunson have made it their ministry to bring a whole lot of drama into the lives of local kids.
“We just wanted to see the kids more active in church,” said Tara Brunson. “So we started writing little 10, 15 minute skits.”
The roots of the B&B Theatre Productions, their Christian performing arts non-profit, can be traced back to when the couple still lived in New York. Through their church, the Brunsons were involved with an outreach program, holding Bible studies and running a basketball team for at-risk youth.
The program required kids participating to attend church services at least twice a month. The mini-plays were developed as a way to make church engaging for the kids. Tara Brunson, a Sunday school teacher, carried with her that eagerness to make worship exciting and compelling for children when she and her husband moved to Augusta in 2010.
“We want to see the youth doing more, to be more engaged about Christ,” she said. “We wanted to bring the cookies off the top shelf, make it a little more understandable and fun for them.”
The burgeoning ministry expanded into puppeteering the following year. The two had just had a baby and money was tight. Jack Brunson put together the first version of B&B’s puppet character, Rhoda, with cardboard, coke bottles, popsicle sticks, their son’s clothes and Tara’s wigs.
“In 2011, God gave my husband a vision to do puppets and we remember growing up with Sesame Street,” said Tara Brunson. “She looked like Frankenstein’s monster, but the kids absolutely loved it.”
Jack’s skills in puppetry developed further, and so did the scope of the Brunsons’ theater endeavors. Alongside puppet shows, B&B produces short and feature children’s plays, mostly dramatizations of Bible stories or retooled versions of classic fairy tales like Pinocchio and Jack and the Beanstalk.
Many of the shows are religious in nature, expressing Christian teaching through the performances; and many are written with messages about good morals or explore issues such as bullying, peer pressure or self-discovery.
B&B’s most recent production is “Lil Red From the Hood,” a take on the story of Little Red Riding Hood, which had two shows in October and one in January at the Jabez Hardin Performing Arts Center in Evans.
B&B is also expanding to television and making short films, and even holding performance arts classes where kids can learn about acting, improvisation and film production.
While Jack Brunson did study drama, the couple notes that their skills in theatrical production developed as they continued the ministry, stressing that the artistry is drawn from the mission.
“It means that it’s not about me, it’s something higher than who I am or the skills that I possess personally,” said Jack Brunson. “It’s all through the direction of God. Whether we’re going to talk about Jesus today, or whether we’re giving something moral-based, that’s something that’s worked out with Him.”
Though B&B Theatre Productions primarily present performances for kids, the Brunsons say that the audience—as well as participants—can be from ages “five to 80.” For more information, visit its website at https://augustapuppets.com/.
Skyler Q. Andrews is a staff reporter covering education in Columbia County and business-related topics for The Augusta Press. Reach him at skyler@theaugustapress.com.
