thing you’ ve dreamed up in your mind, and then to see it come to life on stage."
Shoemaker is no stranger to succeeding under pressure: In both 2013 and 2015, she took her cheer teams from Southwestern High School all the way to the top to win the UCA National High School Cheerleading Championship.
In dance and theater, under the varied pressures of mounting a challenging production, a special camaraderie develops among the collaborators, and, at Pep & Pizzazz, many years of working together has created something special.
“ That is something that just warms my heart because it’ s a lot of my students and staff, and I’ m seeing them grow as choreographers,” said Shoemaker.“ They’ re coming along beside me and we are creating this thing together, which I find to be much more rewarding than creating it all by myself.”
Shoemaker remains quite fond of the many wonderful memories from all the Nutcracker productions in Somerset over the years, and things have naturally come together more and more efficiently with the team’ s experience that has come along with each new year and new production.
“ As we’ re hitting year 11, I have staff that were at one time in the show that are now helping me brainstorm, and with the creative process,” she said.“ At this point, my staff does way more choreography than me, I just oversee— though I do have a couple of pieces I’ m responsible for this year.” There is one’ s theater family and one’ s home family, and the way it turned out for Britani, those two beloved situations turned out to overlap in a special way.
“ This is one of my favorite Nutcracker stories!” she beamed.“ I’ ve adopted three children and they all came to me as teenagers and The Nutcracker is how all of that came
Pictured Below: Britani Shoemaker met young A. C. Prater, who became her adopted son, because she needed an actor to play the Nutcracker one year. about!” She said that for the production in 2017, she did not have a teenage boy available as a student at Pep & Pizzazz, and so did not have a performer for the title role of the Nutcracker.
Shoemaker had a good friend in Heather Foister, the drama director at Somerset High School, and she asked Foister if she had a student who might be able to assume the role. Foister in turn asked her student A. C. Prater, who was up for the challenge.
As fate, and faith, would have it, Prater just happened to live a few doors down from where Pep & Pizzazz was at that time located.
“ During that season, in preparing for The Nutcracker, I learned that A. C. and his sister, Quaneisha, needed a home, they needed a place to live and they ended up moving in with me,” said Shoemaker.“ A few years later, I was able to adopt them.”
A couple of years later, Shoemaker also ended up adopting another son, Jalil Shoemaker.
A. C., who has since graduated from university with a
8 • SEKY- Southeast Kentucky Life December 2025