MCT Volunteer Coordinator/Tour Support
I am delighted to find myself living in Missoula after years of spending days at a time in our wonderful city. I started my time with the Missoula Children’s Theatre as a Tour Actor/Director in the Summer of 2006, when I began a 1-year contract that meant far more to me than I had ever expected.
There are some things you don’t learn about your time on the road until you arrive in Missoula. For one thing, the design of a set and costumes that are compactible enough to fit into one little red truck. As someone who had not previously experienced Missoula Children’s Theatre, I had an image in my head of driving a truck AND trailer across the Country. The Ford Rangers that awaited us here in Missoula were a welcome relief.
Over the years I worked in 37 different States, 3 Provinces and 1 Territory in Canada, as well as parts of Japan, Guam and South Korea. I have stayed in homes and hotels in over 300 different towns over the last decade and a half, and I have helped teach an entire generation of children. A few years back, now, a relatively new Tour Actor/Director made it abundantly clear just how long I had been on the road, as he had a photo of the two of us together in Jungle Book costumes. I was in my full Baloo outfit, and he was wearing the Tabaqui costume. It was something of a good feeling, knowing that I taught someone “so well” that they followed in my footsteps years later. It also made me age about 20 years in an instant.
I have left the road a few times over the years, but I’ve returned again and again for one reason: there is no other job that ends every week on such a positive note. Helping students succeed onstage is always a highlight, and I am so happy that I now get to support the Tour Actor/Directors that make those moments happen.