If you attended Dayton Public Schools’ All-City Arts Festival on May 4, you may have seen Charna Williams passing out yellow postcards behind the crowd.

Those postcards feature an illustration of a bright-eyed girl picking cherries off a tree. “Little Cherry Lynn,” a musical written and directed by Williams, will be performed at the Dayton Art Institute this weekend. The show will be performed by children between the ages of 8 and 15. 

Williams, a 2001 John H. Patterson Coop High School graduate (now David H. Ponitz Career Technology Center), wrote the script for “Little Cherry Lynn” over the course of two years. She has written and directed two other plays, beginning in 2011. 

This is her first musical. “Little Cherry Lynn” centers around a family who bakes a beloved cherry pie, but someone is out to steal their recipe. 

She plans to write a second part to the musical, and possibly a “Little Cherry Lynn” children’s book.

Williams’ ultimate goal is to end up in Hollywood directing films, and she sees this accomplishment as getting her one step closer to that dream. 

Williams went to Sinclair Community College after graduating from DPS, and transferred to the International College of Broadcasting where she received her Associate Degree in radio and tv broadcasting. She also has a Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Phoenix. She is now an on-air personality for 102.9 FM. 

She studied broadcasting at Patterson long before she landed her current job. But she wants people to know that there is no time limit on achieving something you want.

“I never gave up. Even when I was working an ordinary job,” Williams said. “There’s no age limit. There’s no time limit. Just never give up.”

For more information about the musical, and for tickets, visit: https://littlecherrylynnthemusica.simpletix.com