Missoula Children’s Theater was in town again for another stellar performance, this year with 50 local child actors putting on “Rapunzel” on Sept. 17.
Brian Grest with Arts Humboldt says that Missoula is always a great opportunity to bring children’s theatre to Humboldt and is an opportunity they otherwise would not have.
Directors Seth Hollen and Monica Domena with Missoula started auditions on Monday Sept. 12 with the Humboldt actors and had everyone ready for two Saturday performances at the HCI auditorium.
Grest would like to thank the community for “coming out in droves” to support the kids.
“It’s very exciting for them to look out in the audience and see a full house.”
Grest was also awed by Hollen and Domena’s direction and how they prepared the kids for an hour long performance in just five days.
Domena loves giving children the opportunity to fall in love with theatre, especially kids who are more introverted and do not know how talented they are.
“There are kids who haven’t been on stage before, they’ve never done theatre before at all, they’ve never seen a play, they don’t know anything about this sort of stuff. They realize how fun it is.”
Social barriers can be difficult for kids to break, says Hollen. Performing can help with that.
Hollen says that he has seen plenty of kids terrified about going out onto a stage. When they are coaxed out and Hollen is there beside them, by the end of the play they are having the time of their lives, he says.
“It’s not about them doing theatre, it’s about them going out and doing something they don’t think they could do.”
Domena and Hollen both say that they are amazed at what the kids can accomplish in just a week of rehearsal.
It is a crazy request, says Domena, but unlike adults who have that conflict with doubt, kids are different and do not have that sense of the impossible yet.
“Kids aren’t at that age yet where they have that response of ‘I can’t do that’. You just tell them, ‘this is what we’re doing’ and they’re like, ‘okay, I guess that’s what they are going to do.’”
Hollen started getting on to the stage early in life with auditions starting when he was 11-years-old.
For him, touring with Missoula is his way of giving back to everyone who has helped him along his own journey.
“I always looked at my directors as something that was unattainable. Now I’m in that directing role, looking at kids look at me with the same look I had when I had as a kid, which is really quite special to me.”
Fifty Missoula teams go around to 17 different countries to help children get more involved in theatre.
Hollen and Domena are current touring Saskatchewan for 10 weeks, including Estevan this week, before heading back to the United States.
Arts Humboldt has been bringing Missoula to Humboldt since the disbanding of the Quill Plains Recreation Association.
Grest says Arts Humboldt has been filling in those gaps ever since.
“That is one of the reasons Arts Humboldt actually formed in the first place. We noticed there were things missing in the community that we wanted to bring back and a voice in the community that maybe was lacking as well.”
Missoula was supported by Potash Corp. Lanigan, the City of Humboldt, Humboldt Collegiate Institute, and Humboldt Public School, as well as seven local businesses who pitched in to provide care for the directors during their Humboldt stay.
