Best heroine in the making

Sara Smith is that rare teenage performer whose precocious nature charms even as her performer's maturity refreshes. The gifted actress, who earlier this year enchanted Arvada Center theatergoers with her brave turn as Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird, exuded girlish curiosity and upright determination while starring as Mary Lennox in the Town Hall Arts Center's production of The Secret Garden. Wisely stopping short of pushing the melodramatic limits of either role, Smith responded to each new revelation -- and each subsequent dilemma -- as though it were a necessary, though ill-fitting, piece in life's jigsaw puzzle, conveying a young girl's dreams and complexities without a shred of petulance or angst.