After a week of rehearsals, the students in Delaware City Schools Summer Drama Camp took the stage Friday afternoon at Hayes High School to perform “Annie.”

Summer Drama Camp Director Jennifer Ruhlen said the goal of the weeklong summer camp is to give students some experience on stage, and she added the attendees selected “Annie” as the show after previously performing “The Jungle Book” and “101 Dalmatians.”

“We wanted to do something that didn’t involve animals,” Ruhlen joked Friday. “We always have a lot of girls, and ‘Annie’ involves a lot of girls. We want them to gain a little more familiarity with the stage.”

Ruhlen said the camp is a good sample of the drama programs at Dempsey Middle School and Hayes.

“We have some with nerves (so we want them) getting that experience on stage and getting them more confident with themselves and more familiar with the working of the stage,” Ruhlen said. “It gets them ready for Dempsey and the high school.”

Ruhlen said the students worked on the show every morning during the weeklong camp, and they would perform for their families Friday afternoon. Ruhlen said she was looking forward to the performance.

“I don’t personally get nervous, I get more anxious making sure all the pieces are coming together and dealing with the tech side of it,” Ruhlen said. “I’m more excited seeing what they’ve done all week. Learning a show in a week is hard for kids to memorize, so it’s pretty exciting.”

The show’s title character is played by Eden Saunders, an incoming sixth grader, who said she took part in the camp because she had enjoyed singing and had gotten solos in previous drama camps.

“I thought I’d give it a shot,” Eden said. “I’ve been doing it for all three years. It’s my first time getting a main role. I’ve had upper roles but none of them were ever main.”

Eden said she even continued to study her lines with her parents when she would go home after camp and was nervous and excited for Friday’s performance. Eden said the best part of the show has been working with the cast, and while she said she’s nervous about sixth grade, she’s excited about the drama program at Dempsey.

“I enjoyed hanging out with the cast and all the main roles,” Eden said. “It’s a really good group of people.”

Kendall Hay, an incoming fourth grader, plays another orphan in the show and said she enjoyed performing “It’s the Hard Knock Life” at the start of the show.

“I like practicing the dances and singing the songs,” Kendall said. “I’m not nervous.”

Kendall said she is looking forward to doing theater again in the future.

One of the show’s iconic songs, “N.Y.C.,” is interrupted by a grumpy old man, played by fifth grader Benjamin Shirring, who tells the show’s leads to “keep it quiet down there.”

“I’ve done one show so I’m not super nervous,” Benjamin said, before saying how fun it is to be grumpy in the show. “It’s been fun to practice everything and do the dances.”

Parker McCrery, a sixth grader who plays one of the show’s villains, Rooster, said he’s enjoyed playing a bad guy.

“We get to have funny parts, and we get to be evil. I feel like playing the villain is cool,” Parker said. “I’ve done this for all three years so I feel like I’m going to nail it. I’ve had lines every year, so I feel like I can do this.”

Parker said he’s enjoyed learning and memorizing “Easy Street” and was looking forward to the performance.

“It’s been exciting all week to do this,” he said.

Parker said he was “kind of” looking forward to attending Dempsey in the fall.

“It’s going to be hard work and there’s going to be lots of homework, so I feel like I’m never going to have free time,” Parker said before adding that he plans to take part in the Dempsey production of “Newsies” in the fall.

Glenn Battishill can be reached at 740-413-0903.