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Principal’s Corner by Nick Sofio

Last week, 32 Lakeview students in third, fourth and fifth grades participated in a week-long production based on “Aladdin” that culminated with a public performance at the Southwest Middle School theater on Friday. It was truly amazing to watch our students bring this play to life in only four days.

Prairie Fire Children’s Theatre is a professional touring group based out of Minnesota, and has been providing communities with performing arts experiences since 1987.  Lakeview has been partnering with Prairie Fire Children’s Theatre for well over 10 years and performed familiar shows over the years such as; “Beauty and the Beast,” “Alice in Wonderland” and “The Wizard of Oz” just to name a few. Prairie Fire Children’s Theatre group did a masterful job of guiding, coaching and directing our students through the evening practices, rehearsals and performance.  

With cancellations as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic in prior years, we were finally able to hold our first performance for Lakeview students since the 2018-19 school year. Needless to say, our students were both very nervous and very excited. Despite this being the very first experience for all of our students with Prairie Fire, they worked diligently to study and learn their lines, build confidence with being on the big stage and project their voice throughout the theater. The students put on an amazing show that they will no doubt remember for a very long time.  

Prairie Fire Children’s Theatre  is a wonderful experience for our students who choose to participate, and I thoroughly enjoy watching our students become more confident in themselves and their performance skills and abilities. Many students are already looking forward to Prairie Fire Week 2023.     

Nick Sofio is principal of Lakeview Elementary School.