SANDPOINT — Energy? She’s got it, galore. Enthusiasm? It builds up in waves and nearly catapults her from the chair as she shares her love of teaching the acting craft to younger students.

Starting this Wednesday, Sandpoint native Keely Gray will harness both of these powerful, creative forces as she introduces an expanded schedule of theater classes through the Music Conservatory of Sandpoint.

“Obviously, I get excited about all of this,” said the 2006 SHS grad, who went on to earn an associate’s degree at NIC before getting her bachelor’s in Theater Arts and Music at the U of I.

The chance to teach at MCS came up when the accredited conservatory went looking for someone with strong credentials to take on its existing Shakespeare class. At the time, she was “working here and there and doing some local community theater,” as well as handling the job of assistant director for longtime SHS theater instructor/director Jeannie Hunter.

When friend and technical director, Taryn Quayl, advised her that MCS was in the search for what might become a larger theater program there, Gray was all over the opportunity.

“The opening for the Shakespeare class came up and I jumped on it,” she said. “That was the foot in the door.”

She started with one class and four students, working monologues and short scenes with the young actors. But enthusiasm like hers is infectious. She now teaches seven classes of between 6-10 students each.

Rolling into the fall, the conservatory – with Gray helping lead the charge – has quickly increased its theater program with the addition of new classes. The conservatory founders and board of directors were all-in on the idea, she noted.

“It went from zero to 150 like that,” she said, snapping her fingers for effect. “And I’m eternally grateful for that.”

The ongoing Shakespeare class starts its fall schedule on Wednesday of this week, followed in short order by an Intro to Children’s Theater class on Thursday, and the advent of Musical Theater I, beginning on Oct. 6.

“Musical theater is my thing, so I’ve been begging to do that one,” said Gray. “This is our first semester for that class.”

If it looks like the young artist is in the process of building a program for grooming youthful actors for the stage, that’s exactly what she has in mind.

“I’d love to get to a point where we can actually do a full Shakespeare production and a full musical theater performance,” she said.

Had the script played out differently, the actress and director might never have come back home to play this pivotal scene in the conservatory’s growth story. Like so many other Sandpoint youth, she went off to college, appended her skill set in a chosen field and — as young actors do — traveled to the Golden State to try her hand there. In a stroke of luck, her reaction was, “yuck.”

“I moved to California for about a hot second and realized it wasn’t for me,” she said. “It took me going there to find out how lucky I was to be from here.”

Beyond the theater classes, Gray is also a director for the MCS Music Matters after-school outreach program, which offers financially accessible choir and orchestra instruction to area youngsters.

“I feel like the arts are such an important vehicle – especially for children – because it’s a place where they can feel accepted,” she said.

The Shakespeare, Intro to Children’s Theater and Musical Theater I sessions each will run for 12 weeks, at a cost of $145 per class for the 12-week session. Some classes will be taught at the Heartwood Center in Sandpoint.

For information, call 208-265-4444, or visit online at: sandpointconservatory.org