Missoula Children's Theatre presents "Rapunzel" in Chinook this Saturday

Local children will take to the stage this Saturday for the annual Missoula Children's Theatre's (MCT) production. This year's play is "Rapunzel." It will be the 38th appearance of the traveling production for audiences in Chinook. MCT's "Rapunzel" is based on a classic fairytale of a damsel's escape from a towering imprisonment, aided and foiled by a cast of gardening ogres, corn and potato spies, wood elves, a troll and the Three Billy Goats Gruff. About 50 local children will be performing in the musical adaptation.

There will be two presentations of "Rapunzel" on Saturday, January 21, at 1:00 pm and 3:30pm. Both performances will be at Chinook High's auditorium with tickets available at the door. Several local organizations and individuals help underwrite the cost of bringing MCT to town.

The Tour Actors and Directors for "Rapunzel"

Each MCT production has two staff members who alternate at each stop between directing the production and acting the role of the main character. Victoria Larson, a native of Harlem and the Human Resources Director for MCT since 1999, said, "During the winter tour season MCT will have 37 teams on the road." In a typical year MCT staffers will work with 65,000 children in more than 1,200 communities in all 50 states and 17 countries. MCT began 40 years ago with one team of actor/directors and a single little red pickup to haul the staffers and production materials.

Larson added, "The 2017 production team visiting Chinook is a seasoned pair, both graduates of Central Washington University." One of the staffers in Chinook is Monica Domena who graduated with a degree in theatre performance. She spent last year touring the country with Teatro Milagro, a bilingual group that takes Latino theatre, culture and arts education to communities. Her male counterpart is Seth Hollen. He graduated recently with a degree in musical theatre and his performance credits include the role of the Phantom in the "Phantom of the Opera."

Selecting, training and sending out the actors/directors

Last spring Victoria Larson invited me to tour the MCT facility and learn firsthand about the process of finding the talented musicians and actors who make up the 40+ pairs that can be touring at any one time. MCT's main facility is located on North Adams Street, just a couple of blocks north of the University of Montana's campus. It's housed in an old-school building that was remodeled to create office and related work space. A 300+ seat theater was added to the original building. But few aspiring actor/directors go to the headquarters seeking a job. MCT goes to the actors and musicians for recruiting.

Most future staffers are recruited through organized auditions conferences in Portland, Boston, New York City, Memphis, Greensboro, North Carolina, St. Louis, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Denver and St. George, Utah. At a typical conference MCT recruiters hear as many as 900 actors and musicians each do a 90 second audition. Regular recruiters are often joined by local MCT veterans who help evaluate the auditions. Based on each individual audition, from 15-200 performers will be 'called back.' That means they come back for more auditioning and interviews within a few hours or the next day.

Larson said, "After about 90 seconds of auditioning we can make a pretty good assessment of the person and whether they will fit our program." At the call backs a hopeful who sang will be asked to do a reading, and actors will be asked to sing a few bars of a song. Recruiters want to assess both acting and musical abilities as the actors/directors will be expected to lead and direct the full breadth of a musical production.

"First, we try to tell prospective employees why they shouldn't take the job. We want them to understand the hardships of travel, can live out of a suitcase or will be content spending weeks at a time with one other staffer. It's a bit of a gypsy lifestyle and not a good fit for everyone." She added recruits are always asked at least these three questions: "What about the job excites you? What about the job scares you? What other qualities would you bring to MCT that aren't reflected in your resume?"

Those who stay through the call back then complete an application, which is sent to headquarters in Missoula. Larson showed some applications and explained the shorthand system used to rank each candidate. The human resource staff then does criminal background checks and looks at motor vehicle records for driving issues (touring staffers share duties driving the Little Red Trucks). Finally, a 'web crawl' looks at the candidate's social media posts. Larson explained, "We look for inappropriate posts and in training tell them to keep their posts as private as possible and we do periodic looks at their social media posts even after they are hired."

Larson likened the selection process as a kind of cross between hiring for a job and matching new college students with roommates in the dorm. She said, "We have about a 95% success rate on pairing for the tours. Sometimes we do have to rearrange pairs." There's another group of employees designated 'home staff.' Those are the 40-50 people who work at the main office year round and additional temporary employees who work with the summer programs in Missoula.

Once the hiring decisions are made, the new recruits come to Missoula for some intensive training, then 'hit the road.' Interestingly, there is no attempt to pair a veteran staffer with a new hire. New staff is accompanied by a trainer for a week, often a former touring staffer. The trainers observe and work with the new staff to help them feel at ease in their new roles.

Reflections on 20 years of human resources at MCT

Larson worked her way up through the ranks at MCT, becoming the Human Resources Director in 1999. She said, "Now I'm seeing applicants for touring jobs who were child actors in an MCT production at their school several years ago." She pointed to a recruitment piece noting that the MCT touring actor/director in the photo had performed while an elementary student. Another change is the increased size of the staff. The number of both home and touring staff has doubled since she first joined MCT. She said her biggest challenge is "getting everything done."

What are the rewards of the job? Larson said, "It is theatre-in every sense-on a daily basis and I thrive on that (she's had roles in 20 of the community productions staged in Missoula). I feel like the luckiest person ever-to have a career I love and that continues to interest and stimulate me and have that be in the arts in a company with a mission that I am passionate about."

Audience members at MCT productions can appreciate the efforts made to find the right actors/directors. And it's a pretty good bet that the upcoming production of "Rapunzel" will be no exception to that long tradition of excellence.