Getting Kids Into the Act : A children’s project has encouraged 30 students to create and produce their own version of ‘Aesop’s Fables.’

The evil cat is causing trouble.

“We can throw his yarn ball on the freeway,” suggests mouse Nicolette Anderson.

“We can cook him in the microwave,” says mouse Jackie Gonzalez, to which mouse Rosita Henriquez responds, “We can call 911.”

These may sound like a television gag-writer’s overflow, but the lines are part of the script of an inventive children’s project, headed by Alicia Wollerton, and put together by members of The Road Theatre Company. It opens tomorrow at Road Theatre, and plays one performance June 4 at North Hollywood’s Group Repertory Theatre during the NoHo Arts Festival.

The script is for a staging of “Aesop’s Fables” and was written by students of Hazeltine Elementary School, along with a couple of students from Kester Avenue Magnet and Trinity Christian School. The students, ages 7 to 13, have created the characters and staging.

Wollerton, actress and former artistic director of Road Theatre, is also a full-time teacher at Burbank’s Providencia Elementary School. At one time, Wollerton said one acting job she would never take was in a children’s theater. But she did accept a touring job with actor Timothy Busfield’s Fantasy Theatre in Sacramento, which caused a big turnaround in her thinking.

“It was actually the most gratifying theater I’ve ever done,” Wollerton says. “I came back to L.A. and said, ‘I’ve got to be involved with kids.’ ”

She has appeared in the long-running “Tamara,” and at Grove Shakespeare Festival and Shakespeare L.A. “But I kept going back to kids,” she says. “Suddenly I wanted to do kids instead of acting.”

The idea for the present project came to Wollerton last year to involve youngsters in all aspects of theater. She was particularly interested in getting to this age range.

“Something that is really needed out there,” Wollerton explains, “is strong after-school programs, places where kids can go and get what they do in school reinforced. But not in a way that’s school. A lot of the parents work. They don’t have time to be there to supervise what’s going on during those hours between 3 and 6.”

What has been going on between 3 and 6 at the Road has been an eye-opener for the students and for the many Road Theatre members who have given their time to help shape the project. Students who were too shy to speak at the beginning wound up making suggestions and helping with plot development. Those who are more outgoing have found a way to use their creative energy.

After 500 applications were distributed at Hazeltine Elementary, the project wound up with about 30 students. Nineteen students will participate in the public performances.

The project began, Wollerton explains, “with improvisation games, theater games. Every day we read one of Aesop’s fables at the end, and we’d talk about it. Then we started deciding which fables we liked the most. We’d talk about what makes the story interesting, what the conflicts of the fable are. The students would talk about what characters they needed in order to tell the story. Some of the fables evolved into more personal experiences. They had lessons they had experienced in their own lives. I wanted the students to be guiding what was happening.”

The students shaped their script through improvisation, at the same time learning about theatrical conventions, staging and blocking and the discipline required. She says the final contributions between students and company members were probably 50-50.

Wollerton remembers reading Aesop’s fables when she was 6. “The ideas in those fables had such an impact on who I think I am as a person, how I live my life, what my values are, how I want to treat people.”

Lessons that students learn from the stories may be equal to lessons they’ve been learning from the project.

Aside from the fun, Wollerton says, there are other reasons for the students’ involvement. “Feeling a part of--I guess it’s that sense of community you get from doing theater. From an academic standpoint, it helps these kids in terms of language acquisition--things like reading and talking about values. And there are social skills, the interaction, they need for their lives ahead.”

Susan Rome, who with Taylor Gilbert was co-founder of The Road Theatre, is one of the members who has given time to the students. She says, “In the very beginning, I saw their reticence and their fear and inhibitions. Now they really know how to focus, and start creating from a place of relaxation rather than all that chaos with each of them coming from a different energy space out there.

“The other day,” Rome continues, “I wanted to get the fear of the theater gods into them, and make them realize that we’re going to do this in front of people. I said, ‘What are some of the things that are going to be needed from you guys to be able to do this?’ They answered, ‘Cooperation, discipline, focus, attention.’ It’s been amazing to me. They’re exhausting, but they’re really inspiring.”

WHERE AND WHEN

What: “Aesop’s Fables.”

Location: The Road Theatre, 14141 Covello St., No. 9-D, Van Nuys.

Hours: 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. Ends June 25. (Special NoHo Arts Festival performance at 11 a.m. June 4, Group Repertory Theatre, 10900 Burbank Blvd., North Hollywood.)

Price: $5 Valley resident adults; $8 other adults; $3 children.

Call: (818) 785-6175.