During the day, Jenn Phillips works one-on-one with students who need a little extra help in reading and math. As a Title 1 paraprofessional at Martinsville Elementary, her job is patient, quiet, and detail-oriented. Then, after school, the curtain goes up on a different side of her entirely.

For 12 years, Phillips has served as the director of the Martinsville Community Unit School District's annual musical — a production that draws students from fourth grade all the way through high school. While Phillips coordinates nearly every aspect of the production—from casting to makeup to choreography—she also relies on help from assistant directors Paula Wilson and Bethani Conzenu. Her husband, Travis, paints the sets. The show goes up in seven weeks of after-school rehearsals, five days a week, and tickets cost five dollars.

"I love watching the kids grow," she said. "I think it's neat when you cast somebody, and you're like, oh, I hope they can do this — and then it's like the role was written for them."

This year's production is The Jungle Book, performed through Pioneer Drama, a company Phillips appreciates for its affordability and flexibility. Scripts, music, and royalties run about a thousand dollars total — a critical factor in a program that kept ticket prices at one dollar for a decade. Pioneer Drama's adaptations draw from original source material rather than Disney films, which means Phillips occasionally has to explain to young cast members that yes, the peacock and the bat were in the book — the movie just went a different direction.

The 38-member cast this year skews young. Five are high school students, the rest are junior high and elementary. Phillips knew the program would cycle through waves — between 2023 and 2025, the program graduated a strong group of senior performers. Now the younger generation is coming up. When signups opened at the elementary school this year, 57 kids put their names down.

That enthusiasm traces back, in part, to a tradition Phillips started years ago: on opening night, the cast travels to the elementary school and performs a preview for the younger kids. A freshman this year, Terry Garner, told Phillips he watched one of those previews when he was in the lower grades. "He said he watched it and thought, I think I could do that," Phillips recalled. "And then the next year he joined the cast, and he's on his third show."

The whole thing started because of her daughter. When her oldest was a fourth grader, she auditioned for Oliver and came home with the role of the Artful Dodger. "I said, no, you didn't — you're a fourth grader," Phillips laughed. She did, and she was remarkable. A few years later, when her daughter was heading into her sophomore year, the school had no one to direct that season's musical. Phillips and the elementary principal, Mrs. Cooper — then a first-grade teacher — stepped in. "We had no idea what we were doing, and it was an absolute blast."

They even ended up in the cast. When an actor dropped out close to opening night, the two directors split the role — Cooper handled the speaking lines, Phillips handled the singing. "Never again," Phillips said, laughing. "It was a lot of fun."

Since then, the production has grown steadily. Travis Phillips, a tree arborist who owns Phillips Tree Service, uses the quieter winter months to build and hand-paint the sets. What started as a tree or two has expanded into full backdrops — twelve feet wide and eight feet tall — and multi-use pieces that transform from show to show. A structure that was a pirate ship one year became the dwarfs' house the next. This year, it's Council Rock on one side and a ruined city on the other. When Phillips walked onstage recently and saw the finished jungle backdrop, she said it was like stepping into another world.

The program's photos have appeared multiple times in Pioneer Drama's national catalog, including a cover this year. Not bad for a small-town show with five-dollar tickets and a cast full of kids who are also juggling volleyball, basketball, wrestling, and dance.

"I believe being on the stage teaches them so much," Phillips said. "Stage presence. Being able to talk into a room. Being okay with being uncomfortable. And I like to see kids in this day and age get to turn off from technology and just be in a book." The Jungle Book opened on March 20th. The jungle is ready. So is Jenn Phillips.