Rural Missouri - August 2022 - 28

Broadway meets Main Street
Maples Repertory Theatre brings the arts to small towns
Youth from Memphis show off their best monster pose during one session of the theater camps hosted by Maples Repertory Theatre in June.
by Jim McCarty | jmccarty@ruralmissouri.coop
O
n a brightly lit stage in Memphis, Missouri, a
group of young actors and actresses come to
grips with the fact that they are monsters. As
they trod the boards they will trade blood for lettuce,
hold the world's fi rst werewolf howl off, search for
long-lost human friends and learn it's OK to be different.
The scene is one of fi ve summer theater camps put on
in small Missouri towns - Memphis, Macon, Salisbury,
Shelbina and Princeton this year - thanks to outreach
from Macon's Maples Repertory Theatre. The weeklong
camps are designed to introduce small-town youth to the
stage says Maples Rep Education Director Emily Long.
" Maples Rep has always wanted to have a program like
this, " she says. " They've successfully been able to do it
certain summers, where we do a performance camp in
Macon. And then we take the exact same camp and do
weeklong camps in different communities around central
and north-central Missouri, as far away as we can get.
This year has been the most prolifi c one. We have fi ve
camps that we're doing. "
Joined by summer interns Bailey Angel and Meghan
McGehee, Emily works with local committees that organize
tryouts, fi nd a stage for the camp and work out
funding. The three have been impressed by the turnout,
ranging from 19 in Memphis to 40 in Macon. That's up
from the nine to 25 who turned out for last year's camps.
The goal for the camps is to learn enough stagecraft to
put on a play on the fi nal day. In most cases the entire
community turns out to see the performance.
" The town puts out the word that we're coming, and
then they all come on day one, and we audition them,
28 RURAL MISSOURI | AUGUST 2022
give them their little parts and they start learning it, "
Emily says. " And they learn the whole thing in fi ve days. "
This year the play was " We Are Monsters, " a musical
that required singing and dancing in addition to acting.
That meant auditions included a little bit of howling along
with working up the courage to get up on stage and sing.
" This group in particular has been braver than others, "
Emily says of the Memphis troupe, who ranged
in age from 9 to 18. " There's something in the water in
Memphis. They are not scaredy-cats at all. In fact, on
audition day we asked them if they're OK singing a solo,
and I think we had one that was like, 'No, thank you.'
But everyone else was like, 'Yeah, give me a solo. I want
a solo.' Part of the magic of theater is getting them on the
stage and teaching them to be confi dent in themselves. "
Once parts are assigned, the kids break up into groups
comprised of werewolves, vampires and humans. " This
show is really nice, " Bailey says. " Because there are three
different groups. So we individually choreographed for
each of those groups, and we took them separately so
that we could all work at the same time. "
The actors rehearsed their songs, practiced their moves
and took home scripts to learn their lines. All of the songs
were uploaded to YouTube, a big help for the fl edgling
soloists. By Thursday the entire play is rehearsed and
any rough spots smoothed out before Friday's big night.
As the camps unfold, the trio of directors always see
a lot of growth. Shy kids fi nd their voice. Boys learn that
singing can be cool. Friendships are made and more than
one of the young actors and actresses fi nds the selfconfi
dence to continue in theater. It's an opportunity not
all small-town kids have access to.
" We are lucky enough to have Maples Rep in Macon, "

Rural Missouri - August 2022

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