Enopion Theatre Company. started more than 25 years ago with Carol Rezzelle in a one-woman show called “I, Mary.”
While the audience members only saw Rezzelle, who traveled to churches in those early days, she wasn’t alone. Helping behind the scenes with costume changes and other logistics was her daughter, Corinna Rezzelle-Pennypacker, who was 10 when the journey started.
Now after more than 15 years living away from Augusta, Rezzelle-Pennypacker, who has a doctorate in education with emphasis on arts-based pedagogy, is back and working with her mom once again — this time at the Flowing Wells Theatre on Flowing Wells Road in Martinez, where she’s starting an acting conservatory teaching all ages from 4-year-olds through adults.
Read more: Enopion Theatre celebrates 25 years in 2024
“It’s going to be really exciting to start this journey here,” Rezzelle-Pennypacker said. “There’s not a lot of acting classes here for adults.”
She’s also really excited for the programs for the younger children which will include a component for home schoolers that will run weekly from September through March.
Enopion has offered some theater classes, but they’ve mainly been for school-aged children and geared toward the current production. This will expand the age range and be broader in scope.
Rezzelle is thrilled for her daughter’s return; not only for the obvious personal reasons, but because her own plate was full and she needed help. Who better than her daughter who has been training and working in this field almost her entire life?
Rezzelle said she never imagined in those early days that she’d one day be working in a theater with her daughter.
“My first thought was ‘she’s never going to want to do this,’” said Rezzelle. “We went to school together at AU and took all the theater classes.”
By the time Rezzelle-Pennypacker was in college, she believed performing would be her career path and to learn more, she needed to leave the area. She went to the Savannah College of Art and Design, where she majored in performance, never dreaming she’d fall in love with the teaching side.
“I was working for a theater (in Atlanta) doing literacy through drama workshops, going into Title I schools and getting to spend a semester with the students working on how they can learn through theater and performance,” Rezzelle-Pennypacker said.
Seeing those young children come alive through theater and learn and grow created an excitement in Rezzelle-Pennypacker.
Teaching theater does more than just prepare a child to perform on stage, she said. It offers life lessons, helps children regulate emotions, teaches them how to communicate with others and builds confidence in themselves.
She eventually moved to New York, studying at NYU, and later moved to California, where she’s been for the past several years. All the while, she continued her education and has several advanced degrees.
One thing she loved about living and working in the California Bay area was the sense of community among the theater groups. They loaned each other costumes and did teacher swaps.
“It was a community where everyone wanted everyone to be successful,” she said.
This summer, Rezzelle-Pennypacker is directing Enopion’s production of “The Prince is Giving A Ball,” which opens July 17. Tickets went on sale June 17.
Charmain Z. Brackett, the publisher of Augusta Good News and Inspiring: Women of Augusta, has covered Augusta’s news for more than 35 years. She’s won multiple Georgia Press Association awards and is the recipient of the 2018 Greater Augusta Arts Council’s media award. Reach her at charmain@augustagoodnews.com. Sign up for the newsletter here.
Wonderful Article. So excited for this for the Community.
Thank you so much.