On a Monday morning in late June, more than 60 children and their guardians filed into the Katharine Hepburn Arts Center (The Kate) in Old Saybrook. Ranging from kindergarteners to high school students, they arrived from towns along the shoreline to audition for the Missoula Children’s Theatre (MCT) production of The Amazing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, which would be performed on that same stage just five days later.

MCT tour artists/directors Kelsey Seals and Christopher Vance greeted the group and ushered the hopefuls onstage for the two-hour audition. They instructed the children to form a line from tallest to shortest without making a sound. Listening and following directions, as Seals explained later, is an important element of the audition process. The line of kids made three bends to form a rectangle around the perimeter of the stage.

Then came the audition exercises. Beginning with a group of about 15 of the tallest kids, Seals gave them a line to recite: “My mom gave me a long list of chores, but maybe I’ll lose it and play outside instead.” The kids recited the line one by one, each emphasizing different parts and adding his or her own gestures.

The children were divided into four groups, each of which recited two lines each. The smallest children’s lines were “Look at all those chickens!” and “We’re not chickens—we’re ducks!”

Seals later announced that she was going to teach the children a song, one she said that was brand new and that they could not possibly know: The song was “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.” As the children sang in unison, Seals and Vance made their way down the rectangular configuration, leaning in to hear individual voices.

At the end, four children who’d volunteered as assistant directors were assigned backstage roles and every other child was cast in the play. The youngest children became members of the Frowny Face Tribe or the Chameleons, with older kids cast in roles of varying sizes, including Robinson Crusoe.

There would be two performances of the play that Saturday, giving the actors just five days to learn lines and rehearse.

The Lessons Learned

“Kids have amazing memories,” explained Vance.

Studies, he pointed out, have shown that very young children are ripe for learning second languages.

“Their minds are just sponges for everything,” he said.

After roles were announced, rehearsals for some actors began after a short break that same day, with two two-hour rehearsal sessions scheduled for the following day. For school-year programs, such as the one that happens at The Kate in March, the schedule is similar, but rehearsals take place after school.

The kids “do a full day of school and then they do four hours of rehearsal after that,” said Vance. “And then they’re going home at like 8 or 8:30 [p.m.] and then getting up for school the next day.”

Some of MCT’s academic-year touring programs, said Seals, are specifically for elementary school kids.

“We have the kindergarten through 5th graders,” she said. The schedule is “a lot for them. I’ve been doing this for a year and I’m still like, ‘How did we do that? How did those kids do that?’ It’s five days of rehearsal and it’s after school and it’s hard and it’s a lot of lines to memorize. But I’ve never had a show where I’ve been like, ‘This is horrible.’ It’s always good, which is so impressive to me.”

The program is “not just about putting on a show in a week,” Seals explained. “It’s about maintaining a good work ethic. And being responsible, because we give you scripts and we give you costumes. And it’s about working as a team.”

“And learning that sometimes you don’t always get things,” Vance added.

All the children who showed up to The Kate on Monday and auditioned for Robinson Crusoe were able to participate in the production, but sometimes hundreds of kids turn up for auditions and MCT can’t accommodate them all. And of course, only one child can play the lead.

“You do learn the lesson that you’re not going to get everything that you go for,” continued Vance. “And that’s okay. You can always keep trying and maybe it will happen next year.”

Bringing Theater to Kids

MCT’s mission, Seals explained, is to “teach life skills to children through theater,” and Jim Caron, who co-founded MCT in the early 1970s, hoped to “bring theater to kids that wouldn’t have it otherwise or wouldn’t have the same opportunities as kids in, let’s say, Boston,” she said.

“MCT [sometimes] sends us to places that have 100 people total in the town,” she said. “We bring these experiences and these life lessons through a really fun way of teaching.”

Seals and Vance both majored in musical theater at college and became MCT tour actors/directors via a rigorous audition process at a hiring conference.

“They give you a big information session at these conferences,” Seals said. “They’re like, ‘Listen, the job can be hard. It’s a crazy schedule, it’s a lot of work, and it takes a really special kind of person to do it.’ And they warn you: ‘This is a hard lifestyle, it’s a hard job, but if you are up for it, it’s the most rewarding experience you’ll ever have.’”

“They give you outs,” Vance said. “If you don’t want to work with children, go.”

“I love kids,” Seals said. “I’ve taught for a long time. And I am just so glad that I got this opportunity to do this. It’s like the best of both worlds. You’re directing, teaching, and acting.”

“And doing all the backstage stuff, as well,” said Vance. “You just get all of the experience of any show, but all of it is on you.”

Vance and Seals take turns playing the role of Friday in the play. Friday acts as a kind of narrator or emcee and is always on stage.

“The person on stage has a really big job of saving the kids when they don’t know their lines,” said Seals.

Whoever plays Friday also serves as a sort of model for the rest of the cast.

“If Chris or I are tired...the kids are going to perform how we perform,” Seals said. “They’re going to match the same energy that we have. So both of us have to be super high energy all the time, especially playing Friday or any role as a tour actor.”

The member of the team who is not performing is doing the bulk of the directing.

“Both jobs are very exhausting,” Vance said. “One of them you’re taking care of 40 to 50 children while the rest of them are on stage, but it’s obviously worth it because every single cast is different.”

“The show is never the same,” said Seals.

MCT sends pairs of tour actors/directors to all 50 states and 17 countries. This summer, 44 teams are traveling throughout the United States, according to MCT Tour Marketing Director Jonna Michelson.

A Home in Old Saybrook

Bringing MCT is costly but, thanks to sponsors like Dominion Energy and Bank of America, The Kate does not charge children who participate.

“We love that we can make it free to the kids for the week,” said Kate Executive Director Brett Elliot.

The Kate does charge $16 per ticket for the Saturday show.

“We try not to make [tickets] too expensive,” he explained. “A parent could buy one ticket and it would cost under $20 for the week.”

Robinson Crusoe was the 10th MCT show since Elliott started at The Kate in late 2014, but “they’ve been at The Kate longer,” he explained. “They started coming shortly after The Kate opened and we’re celebrating our 10-year anniversary this year.”

The Kate hosts MCT twice a year, once in the summer and once in March, while the children are still in school.

“Uniquely specific to Missoula is that they’re doing a full pre-crafted show in that week,” Elliot said.

The Kate also offers a number of performing arts summer camps for children in July, but the MCT experience is unique, he said.

“MCT has been doing it for so long—all over the world,” he said. “There’s always a moral to the story and it’s a really good company. We’ve had some wonderful folks from MCT over the years.”

Colin Malloy, who played Oscar the Octopus, stays with his family in a beach house on the shoreline every summer but “takes a week off from beach housing” to do the MCT show. He’s also been in MCT productions at The Kate of Black Beard the Pirate, The Frog Prince, Cinderella, and The Snow Queen.

Acting in Robinson Crusoe, he said, “was lots of fun, though it’s a hard commitment. I do it every single year. I highly recommend it because it’s an awesome experience.”