Canadian playwright Richard Turtle's latest collaboration with Orangeville writer Peter Moore, Reading The Signs, is being performed for the first time next week, by Grades 7 and 8 students from Princess Margaret Elementary School.

Mr. Moore, a retired high school drama teacher from Shelburne, is working with the Dufferin Arts Council artists in the school program.

"This play has an important message," says Mr. Turtle. "It's about literacy and how one student falls through the cracks in the school system."

The students are putting the finishing touches on the performance, which delves into the world of being a kid in Grade 8, ready to graduate, and keeping the secret about not being able to read.

Laurie Heimbecker, a teacher at Princess Margaret, says the students are enjoying the experience. "It's a story with a great

message and they are playing characters their own age."

Mr. Turtle and Mr. Moore began working on the play last fall after becoming interested in the topic of illiteracy from a 2005 report by Statistics Canada that said 42 per cent of adults are considered functionally illiterate.

"I asked myself the question," said Mr. Moore. "How can the system graduate functional illiterate students?"

The first collaboration by Mr. Turtle and Mr. Moore is a theatre project called Creating The Monster, a collection of short skits involving a teenage girl and Mr. Moore hopes Reading The Signs has a message that will resonate with students just finishing elementary school.

The inaugural performance is set to take place at 7 p.m., June 22-23, in room 310 (the drama room) at Orangeville District Secondary School.

Tickets are just $3 and available at Princess Margaret Elementary School.