For many years, the Way Off Broadway Players of Belhaven were the only ones treading the boards in Beaufort County, producing laughs comedy after comedy. But community theater is making a slow but sure return to venues across the county — the latest, at the Broadway Kids Camp at the Turnage Theatre starting next week.

The three-week long camp wraps up a series of children’s camps offered by the Beaufort County Arts Council this summer, but for organizers, it represents the start of something more.

“This is still part of our thinking, using this a springboard to create an ongoing children’s theater,” said Joey Toler, executive director of the arts council. “We’ve been talking with Patch Clark, with ECU’s School of Theatre and Dance, about finding the right person to run it on a more permanent, ongoing basis this fall.”

Toler said last year’s Broadway Kids Camp was a huge success — two final shows drew maximum crowds to the downtown Washington theatre to see the kids’ abridged production of “101 Dalmatians.”

“We were shocked,” Toler laughed. “We looked up and we had close to 800 people attend those performances. It was almost full both afternoon and evening.”

This year’s production will be “ANNIE KIDS,” in association with Music Theatre International Kids Series. The youth presentation is an edited version of the original Broadway production of “ANNIE” and will be directed by Inner Banks Music Academy owner and retired P.S. Jones Middle School music teacher Neva Cashion.

“Neva makes it a lot of fun and this a particularly fun show. Everybody knows it,” Toler said.

The camp, which is open to children from rising first through tenth grades, runs for three weeks, from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, with each moment building up to the final production: sets, costumes, acting, stage assisting and more.

“It’s a time commitment,” Toler said. “But when you think about it, you’re mounting a full production in that amount of time. You can’t do it in a week.”

Tuition for the three-week Broadway Kids Camp is $200 for BCAC members and $250 for non-members, and includes all supplies, daily snacks, a camp T-shirt and a cast party after the final

performance, Toler said.

“We still have room for more kids and we want people to know that it’s going on,” Toler said. “It was our most successful kids’ program that we did last year.”

A limited numbers of scholarships and partial scholarships are available.  For more information, call Beaufort County Arts Council at 252-946-2504.