LITTLE ROCK — As a child growing up in Lonsdale, Paige Carpenter, now of Little Rock, built barns and chicken houses on the family farm. Now, as an intern at the Arkansas Arts Center Children’s Theatre, she’s building sets for its upcoming production of The Legend of Robin Hood.
Carpenter, 31, also plays the Prioress of Kirklees in the upcoming production.
Carpenter is a 2002 graduate of Benton High School and a 2006 graduate of Rhodes College in Memphis, where she received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature.
The daughter of Ken and Alicia Chang-Carpenter of Lonsdale and Anice Thigpen and Andrea Halliday of Eugene, Oregon, Paige Carpenter has an older sister, Erin Lee Green, who lives in Puerto Rico, and an adopted stepbrother on her mother’s side of the family, Toby Krasney, who lives in Albuquerque,
New Mexico.
Carpenter is also the great-niece of Johnnie Wheat, formerly of Malvern and now of Bryant, and the late A.J. Wheat, who were like her paternal grandparents when she was growing up in Lonsdale. She is also the granddaughter of Charles and Rita Thigpen of Lecompte, Louisiana.
Theater has been a “recent life change” for Carpenter.
“My dad is a retired chemistry and physics teacher from Benton High School, and my mom has a Ph.D. in biochemistry,” Carpenter said. “I went to college knowing I would major in something science-y.”
But after she started classes at Rhodes, she said, she realized she didn’t want to major in science.
“Three semesters in, I swapped to English literature,” she said with a smile. “That was the only thing I could see that I could finish in time. I graduated with a degree in English literature in four years with no time to spare.”
After graduation, Carpenter went into business.
“I was an apartment manager in Memphis,” she said. “Then I owned property in Little Rock. I left that and got into theater.”
Carpenter had performed in shows at the Royal Theatre in Benton.
“I worked during the week starting my own business. I needed to do something for fun. I got bitten by the theater bug. I auditioned for everything I could get my hands on,” she said.
“I heard about the internship program [at the Arkansas Arts Center Children’s Theatre]. I applied and got into it last year. It’s a paid position. It doesn’t pay a whole lot, but it’s full time, until the end of this season,” Carpenter said.
“I’m pretty much a starving artist,” she said with a laugh.
Carpenter said she is a “scenic intern,” creating scenery for the shows. She is also an actor.
“I play one of the villains in Robin Hood,” she said. “I play the Prioress of Kirklees, who, along with the Sheriff of Nottingham, is out to get Robin Hood.”
Carpenter said there are
many versions of the well-known tale of Robin Hood, and not all of them include the Prioress of Kirklees.
“It’s really a fun role,” Carpenter said. “In one of the oldest versions of the story of Robin Hood, the Prioress of Kirklees manages to kill Robin Hood. Medieval research does show there was a Kirklees Abbey that did have a prioress named Elizabeth.
“This is a pretty large part for me. I played the villain in Sleeping Beauty, but this is a bigger part. It’s a very nice part.”
Carpenter made her debut with the Children’s Theatre as the uninvited fairy in Sleeping Beauty in 2014. She also appeared in its 2014 productions of Pinocchio and The Velveteen Rabbit. She was a scenic assistant for the AACCT productions of Go Gog Go! in 2014 and Rumpelstiltskin this year.
Carpenter, who is married to Tony Bockhold, said she is not sure what she will do when her internship at the Children’s Theatre ends.
“I definitely want to stay with theater,” she said. “In 10 years, I hope to still be in theater in some capacity. I feel I have a lot of catching up to do. Most people [in the Children’s Theatre] have degrees in theater. I have a lot more to learn about stagecraft and scenic design.
“This job often means a 12-hour day for me. I have no time for anything else.
“My family, especially my husband, has been very supportive. I could not have done it without them.”
Carpenter said her husband works for Federal Express and is pursuing a degree in ceramics at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
“We’ll be a starving-artist family one of these days,” she said, laughing again.
The Legend of Robin Hood will open at 7 p.m. Thursday. The maximum ticket purchase for each person is six tickets, and a minimum of $1 per ticket must be paid. Any additional tickets will be sold at regular price.
The Legend of Robin Hood will continue through May 10 with performances at 7 p.m. Fridays and at 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. General-admission tickets are $12.50, $10 for AAC members.
For more information, visit ArkansasArtsCenter.org or call (501) 372-4000.
The Arkansas Arts Center Children’s Theatre is at Ninth and Commerce streets in Little Rock.