Audiologists tell us that we lose a little bit of our hearing, however slight, each and every time we hear a loud noise.

Those who annually attend Junior Theater Festival hope this isn’t true. Just imagine 4,000-plus kids who scream in the main ballroom of the Waverly Renaissance Hotel in Atlanta. They reach decibel levels that would be hard to match if Led Zepplin, Deep Purple and Mötorhead were all playing simultaneously.

But who can blame the kids for being this excited? After they’d performed their 15-minute excerpts from musicals, they would spend Saturday night seeing the newest shows that Musical Theatre International will release in Junior versions. And then on Sunday morning, they’d be introduced to people who either are already their heroes or soon will be.

So an amazing amount of screaming greeted the brand-new MTI titles. Many of kids who witnessed each were obviously thinking, “Oh, I hope we do that one next year – because I’d be perfect for (fill in the blank with the name of the lead character).”

The Play On Players from Duluth, Georgia treated us to a scene from Elf JR. The elves in Santa’s workshop were dressed in more colors than the festival had pods. Well, as the lyric goes in the show, “Why not decorate yourself?” While the cast danced tons of taps in “Sparklejollytwinklejingley,” we saw that those who present the show won’t face a costume challenge. All a director has to do is ask parents to donate their Christmas-themed sweaters which they thought looked so good in the window but terrible when they got them home and on their bodies.

Singin' In The Rain JR. came courtesy of OhLook Performing Arts Center in Grapevine, Texas. Certainly the production broke the budget on umbrellas, as everyone of the dozen of cast members had them. The very young lad in the Gene Kelly role barely reached the chorus girls’ shoulders – and that included his top hat -- but his voice was so startlingly strong that no one wondered how he got the lead. At the end, the boy didn’t get drenched in rainwater, but he certainly received a torrent of applause.

Benj Pasek and Justin Paul got many excited screams when they took the stage to do selections from their James and the Giant Peach JR. But, oh, when Darren Criss of Glee fame came on as a surprise guest – well, if there are words to express the volume of enjoyment, I certainly can’t find them.

However, this volcanic eruption was eclipsed when Criss crooned the lyric “You can all be my ladybugs.” Many in attendance would have transformed themselves into insects faster than you can say “Gregor Samsa.”

Then came the piece de resistance that will add to Disney’s amazing record of 50,000-plus licenses for 38,000 Jr. productions performed by 75 million kids worldwide. The figure will soon increase amazingly now that The Lion King Experience has become available.

Well, for such a blockbuster, a special name must be given. Actually, the official title of The Lion King Experience is subdivided into The Lion King JR. Edition (the hour-long version) and The Lion King Kids Edition (the thirty-minute version).

There are some restrictions. Only schools – and not after-school programs – will be granted licenses. However, a special dispensation was granted to after-school programs that were here this year.

It’s just another reason why attending Junior Theater Festival is a really good idea. You never know what benefits you’ll have just from attending. As Mark Morgan, producing artistic director of the Moorestown Theater Company in New Jersey quickly quipped, “I’m doing it this summer before any schools in our area can get to do it!”

Ironically, it’s not a school but Houston’s Theatre under the Stars that does the show here, complete with masks, kids on stilts and a young Mufasa who sings “They Live in You” as gloriously as anyone has ever heard it. The screams of approval that greeted this performance made me wonder if indeed the kids would have any voices left on Sunday.

No worries; when you’re young, you recover fast. These kids were more than ready to roar when Luca Padovan (late of Newsies) and Lilla Crawford (the most recent stage Annie and Little Red Ridinghood in the Into The Woods film) took the stage.

How smart of the festival’s powers-that-be to book these two. Yes, ‘twas fun to hear Crawford divulge that while filming in England, Prince Philip sauntered by on his horse. Sure, we enjoyed listening to little Luca tell that his quoting a line from Newsies while auditioning helped him get the role. But the real value of having this teenage girl and pre-teen boy in attendance was that they spurred each kid in the audience to think, “If they can do it, I can do it.”

Kristen Anderson-Lopez, up next, agreed. “But you have to be resilient,” she cautioned. “Being talented and good-looking are not enough.” She also put matters into perspective when saying that as thrilled as she felt when her husband Robert Lopez’’ Avenue Q won the Tony for Best Score and Best Musical on the first Sunday in June, 2004, seeing the class she was then teaching in a Bronx school do Once on This Island the following Wednesday was just as gratifying.

As Mr. Lopez took to the piano, Anderson-Lopez talked about creating the score for “Frozen.” “We wondered what it would be like to keep a secret and feel isolated,” she said. “I hope you guys never have to feel that isolated, but if you do, let it go.” Anderson-Lopez started to sing the Oscar-winning song, but hardly got out the first syllables of before thousands of kids joined in. Once done, screams of appreciation pierced the air, just as loud as they’d be a little later when Thomas Schumacher, producer and president of Disney Theatrical Group, announced that “Frozen” is indeed being readied for Broadway.

To paraphrase a Tony-winning musical of 63 years ago, “The teachers; the teachers; I’ll not forget the teachers.” Certainly Freddie Gershon, the CEO of MTI, hasn’t, as he announced “the eight new members of this very elite club” – The Freddie G Experience, which gives worthy teachers a free week of instruction and entertainment in New York.

“I didn’t make this happen” Gershon said, referring to all we’d seen. “The teachers made this happen. They should be appreciated and honored for giving their passion and their hearts.” How excited the teachers were to be selected, especially Dee Anne Bryll of CCM Preparatory Department of Cincinnati, who was given the highest honor, The Freddie G Spirit Award. The thunderous applause she received suggested that the entire population of Ohio’s third-largest city came to witness her triumph.

Some teachers who’d staged and choreographed their Jr. productions took home honors, too, as did plenty of kids. But even many of those students who didn’t get prizes did get to go on stage and perform numbers from Bugsy Malone and other hits.

And while they got great applause and – of course – noise-filled cheers from most everyone, greater raucousness was reserved for one more act. For on Saturday, any teacher who wanted to learn a communal dance with choreographer Steven G. Kennedy could do just that, prior to performing it on Sunday. Kennedy had selected Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off” and when show time came, the seriousness of purpose seen on the kids’ faces during their Junior presentations was now on the teacher’s faces, too. They wanted to have fun and amuse their students, yes, but they wanted to be accomplished as well.

Best of all was hearing young kids cheering like crazy for teachers. Sad to say, that seldom-if-ever happens in America’s schools. For once, what I usually would describe as noise was music to my ears.

You may e-mail Peter at pfilichia@aol.com. Check out his weekly column each Tuesday at www.masterworksbroadway.com and each Friday at www.kritzerland.com. His upcoming book The Great Parade: Broadway’s Astonishing, Never-To-Be Forgotten 1963-1964 Season is now available for pre-order at www.amazon.com.