By SUSAN LAWTON January 9, 2009

MONUMENT SQ.—For any child who has ever watched other kids perform and said, “I want to do that!”, the Children’s Theater Project (CTP) here in JP may be the place to start.

Children get a taste of all things theatrical with director Carol Gallagher, who recently launched the program of theater classes for children ages 5 to 9 at Eliot Hall, the home of the Footlight Club, on Friday afternoons.

Gallagher said she enjoys directing children, most recently in the successful Footlight production of “Annie.” She said she created CTP to introduce more children to the wonders of performing.

Born in JP, Gallagher is an experienced and well-known director and performer in the Greater Boston area. She started performing with the Neighborhood Children’s Theater when she was 13 years old and has been involved in theater ever since. Her lifelong affiliation with America’s oldest community theater, The Footlight Club, has trained her as a singer, dancer, actor, director, producer and more. She has performed in over 25 musicals, directed four of the largest-grossing Footlight Club musical productions as well staged the annual holiday fund-raiser “A Carol Christmas.”

“Spending time on stage and backstage as a child built my confidence and showed me how to smile through the blunders and delight in the successes,” she said. “Stage work integrates the same values that a good athletics program does: teamwork, preparation, hard work and fun.”

“At the Children’s Theater Project, we empower the children by helping them get used to the sound and the power of their voices, individu-ally and as a group,” she said. “They also see how dependent they are on the rest of the cast. The classes are designed to be small enough that budding actors also get a taste of being in the spotlight.”

One of the best aspects of learning at the Footlight Club is that it offers the children the opportunity to see behind the scenes: the costume closet, the props closet and the dressing rooms—some of the hidden magic!

Marilyn Parker of Jamaica Plain, mother of student Sidney Parker, 6, said that CTP makes theater fun, especially when Gallagher takes the children from the box office to the stage, explaining all the important parts in a way the children can understand. “Carol’s energy is conta-gious and spreads through to the children. Sidney comes home with a smile from each class,” the mother said.

Sidney Parker said, “My favorite part of drama class is going into the special closet filled with costumes and picking the pink dress to wear.”

Mom Colleen Scanlan of Jamaica Plain said, “It is nice that [my 6-year-old son and I] do not have to have any arguments about going to Carol’s class. Liam can’t wait to get there.”

Eve Harris’s two children have been in two of Gallagher’s productions. Eight-year-old Max said that when he was working with Carol, she was “always happy, fun to work with.”

His 11-year-old sister Lily concurred. “I loved being in ‘Annie’ and working with Carol. She was so great because she made rehearsals a ton of fun. She gave me direction after each rehearsal to make me even better on stage. Everything I did with Carol in both ‘Annie’ and ‘A Carol Christmas’ was just awesome. I can’t wait to work with her again.”

The winter session begins on Jan. 16. The classes are on Friday afternoons at Eliot Hall, 7A Eliot St., from 4 to 5 p.m. For more informa-tion on CTP, contact Gallagher at 913-8951.