Berea’s Spotlight Acting School opens Spotlight on Faith with a familiar story about a toy rabbit, a child, and the people who make a home feel like home.
A little rabbit made of velveteen cloth is at the center of a new production at The Spotlight Playhouse this weekend. The Velveteen Rabbit runs September 11-13, with performances Friday and Saturday at 7 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m.
The show launches Spotlight on Faith, a new program at Spotlight Acting School. It is a fitting first story for a series that begins with a toy asking a question children have been asking for generations: What makes something real?
Margery Williams’ 1922 children’s book gives that question a simple setting. A child receives a stuffed rabbit, loves it, and gradually changes the toy’s understanding of what it means to be real. The story has been adapted for the stage many times. This production gives Berea audiences a chance to see that familiar tale through the work of local performers.
A new series begins with a familiar kind of faith 🙏
Spotlight on Faith is not being introduced as a lecture. It is being introduced through a story.
In the series’ vision, faith can mean the courage to hope, the trust that people can change, and the belief that every person has worth. Those are ideas that do not belong to one age group or one kind of churchgoing life. They belong to families, neighbors, teachers, grandparents, and anybody who has ever needed somebody else to believe in them.
For Chad Hembree, Executive Director of Spotlight Acting School, that community-rooted understanding is part of the reason the series is beginning with this particular story. After more than 20 years in the Berea community, Hembree has seen what happens when people are given a place to participate, to learn, and to be valued. His belief that every person has worth is a natural fit for a story about a toy that becomes real through love.
The point is not that everybody has to agree on every question. It is that a room full of people can still sit together and recognize the same human need: to belong.
Why a toy rabbit can carry a grown-up question 🐇
The rabbit’s wish is simple. He wants to be real.
The Skin Horse’s wisdom is not. In the story, becoming real is not about looking new or being admired. It is about being loved until the love changes you. The rabbit is a toy, but the question is one that follows a person from childhood into adulthood: Who sees me? Who stays? What happens when I am no longer shiny, useful, or easy to love?
That is why this story works for a community theater audience. A family may come because a child knows the rabbit. A parent may come because the story reminds them of a toy they once carried everywhere. A grandparent may come because the Skin Horse sounds like somebody they knew.
And then, somewhere in the quiet of the play, they may all hear a different part of the same question.
The production is described as family-friendly and approximately one hour long, making it an approachable first theater experience for young children while leaving room for older audience members to find their own meaning.
A stage that looks more like a family table 🎭
One of the special things about this production is its intergenerational cast. The published cast list brings together child, teen, and adult performers, including Ella Graft as Child, Ava Howell as the Velveteen Rabbit, Paula Davis as Mom, Daniel Marcum as Dad, Rebecca Fanshire as Nana, and Chad Hembree as Toy Soldier. The cast also includes young performers in roles such as the Cat, Robot, and three monkeys.
That matters because the story itself is about what happens between generations. The child loves the rabbit. The older Skin Horse understands what that love can mean. The family has its own place in the story, too.
When different ages share the stage, the audience gets to see that exchange happen in real time. A young performer is not simply being taught by an older performer. The older performer is also being reminded of something. That is one of the quiet gifts of community theater: the work can move in both directions.
It also means that a child in the audience can look up and see somebody not much older than them, while a grandparent can look across the room and recognize a familiar kind of courage in the performers.
The room is part of the story 🏠
The Spotlight Playhouse at 214 Richmond Road in Berea is an intimate setting. The audience is not watching from a distant stadium seat. The room brings people close to the work, close enough to hear the pauses and see the small choices that make a character feel like a person.
For The Velveteen Rabbit, that closeness is a good match. This is not a story that needs to shout to be heard. It is a story about a child and a toy, about tenderness and time, about the difference between being looked at and being known.
The intergenerational cast and the intimate space work together. The production can feel less like a performance being delivered to a crowd and more like a story being shared with neighbors.
That is the kind of theater that can reach people who do not usually think of themselves as theater people. You do not have to know the language of the stage. You just have to recognize a child who loves something deeply, or an older person who has learned that love is rarely as tidy as we wish it would be.
A first production worth showing up for ✨
There is a particular kind of hope in opening a new series with a story about becoming real. It says something about what Spotlight Acting School wants to do with this season. It wants to make room for stories that are uplifting without being shallow, and meaningful without being preachy.
It also says something about the community that gathers at 214 Richmond Road. The audience is part of the production’s meaning. Every person who shows up brings a different history of love, loss, family, and belonging. The play does not need to settle all of those histories. It just needs to give them a place to meet.
For families, that may mean an evening together. For a child, it may be the first time theater feels like a place where they belong. For an adult, it may be a reminder that the stories we loved when we were young still have something to say.
And for Spotlight Acting School, it is a beginning.
Good to know before you go 📌
The Velveteen Rabbit runs September 11-13, 2026, at The Spotlight Playhouse, 214 Richmond Road, Berea, Kentucky 40403. Performances are Friday, September 11, at 7:00 p.m.; Saturday, September 12, at 7:00 p.m.; and Sunday, September 13, at 2:00 p.m. The show is family-friendly and runs approximately one hour.
Friday performances are Pay What You Can, with name-your-own-price admission. Unsold tickets are released two hours before showtime. Wheelchair-accessible seating with companion space is available in the front row. If you have special needs, the theater asks that you let them know when you arrive.
Tickets and additional details are available through the official Spotlight Playhouse event page.
The Velveteen Rabbit wants to become real. In Berea, this production offers a chance to remember that the people who love us are often the ones who help us become it.
Upcoming Community and Theater Events
- September 18-20, 2026: Spoonbread Festival (30th annual) at Memorial Park and the Chestnut Street Pavilion, Berea. 🍄
- September 18-27, 2026: Honk! Jr. (Spotlight Acting School students ages 9 to 14) at The Spotlight Playhouse. 🦢
- September 18-27, 2026: Salem’s Daughter (The Bluegrass Players) at The Spotlight Playhouse. 🔭
- September 25-27, 2026: One Reunion at Berea College. 🎓
- October 2-11, 2026: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (The Bluegrass Players comedy-mystery dinner show) at The Spotlight Playhouse. 🎃
Tickets and info for all shows: thespotlightplayhouse.com
Sources
- The Velveteen Rabbit, The Spotlight Playhouse
- Velveteen Rabbit Cast 2026, Spotlight Acting School
- The Velveteen Rabbit, Visit Berea
- Spotlight Acting School
This article originally appeared on BereaOnline.com.
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