FSLM Student Profile December 2024
/Meet Anna Jo Briggs
By Baylor McLelland
For most people, live theater is a way to entertain themselves and get a few good laughs in. But for Anna Jo Briggs, an actress at Silvermoon Theatre and junior at Maud High School, theater is a way of life.
Photo by shane darby.
“I went and watched my kindergarten teacher perform in Charlotte’s Web, and I was hooked,” she explained. “After that, my mom signed me up for a week-long camp at Silvermoon, and I enjoyed it so much.”
Silvermoon Children’s Theatre [SCT] is a local performance group in downtown Texarkana that offers students ages 7 to 18 a chance at performing on stage. The program has been active since 2014, and Anna Jo joined their summer camp just a year later in 2015. By 2017, she was already joining them in mainstage performances.
“I’ve been with SCT since the second grade and in over 20 mainstage plays, not including production camps and summer camps,” she said. “I’ve also been in a few performances at the Perot Theatre and TexRep.”
Her character work can also be seen off-stage, as Anna Jo runs her own side business as a party performer. “Sometimes I dress up as Elsa and go to birthday parties,” she said. “ I usually go and sign pictures, sing a song or two, and let the kids ask me any questions.”
“I think interning in the summer has really made me realize how much I enjoy theater.”
Anna Jo lives in Maud and attends Maud High School. With the commute to Texarkana for theater, her schedule is usually filled to the brim. “On the weekends, I go to the theater for rehearsals,” she said. “I don’t do much until we get to ‘tech week,’ which is the week before our performance. Then I’ll go to rehearsal for a week after school from 4 to 8. Getting from school to theater in less than an hour can be hard sometimes.”
Anna Jo has performed all over Texarkana. “Since I joined SCT, I’ve also performed at the Perot Theatre, and recently, I was also in The Hunchback of Notre Dame at TexRep,” she explained.
While she’s portrayed several characters, including Audrey 2 in Little Shop of Horrors and Morticia Addams in The Addams Family, Anna Jo said she’s never felt a real barrier between herself and her characters.
“I can’t really explain it, but I just get into character onstage,” she said. “It just channels a different me. I don’t have any methods or anything; just as soon as I step onto the stage, I become a whole different person.”
Performing with SCT and TexRep has taught Anna Jo a lot about the art of theater, from acting to vocal performance, but—more importantly—it has also taught her lots about herself. “[The theater companies] have helped me get out of my comfort zone and helped me become the girl I am today,” she said. “Without them, I would just be this shy girl who couldn’t do anything. My best friends have come from SCT, and they have always had my back and have encouraged me.”
Anna Jo works both on- and off-stage to make SCT a better collective. When she first started with them in 2015, she attended several summer camps to learn the basics of acting. Now, almost a decade later, she’s a teacher to a younger generation of local actors.
Left to right: anna jo as the minstrel in Once upon a mattress, the witch in Into the woods, cosplaying as elsa for birthdays, and as audrey 2 in little shop of horrors. (submitted photos)
“I think interning in the summer has really made me realize how much I enjoy theater,” she shared. “Just seeing the little kids’ smiles and seeing how much of an impact I can make on them really brings me joy. Meeting those kids and forming those bonds with them over time has made theater so much better for me.”
Teaching her younger cast members at SCT has also helped her realize one of her life’s ambitions. “I plan to continue to perform anywhere I can, but for a career, I’ll most likely become an elementary school teacher somewhere, and I’ll probably do theater on the side,” she said.
Anna Jo hopes to inspire young people to step onto the stage, whether at SCT or elsewhere. “It is challenging at times, but overall it’s such an amazing life,” she said. “I think everybody should at least try theater. You really learn so much more than just acting.”