Not everyone who performs at Arts Live Theatre is bound for Broadway.
Mark Landon Smith, executive director of the Fayetteville nonprofit, is proud that former students are in New York, Los Angeles and abroad, working and going to school. But both he and longtime instructor Jules Taylor know there's a lot to learn that will pay off outside the theater.
FYI
Arts Live Theatre
2015-16 Season
Aug. 1-9 — “16 in 10 Minutes or Less”: The lives of seven teenagers become intertwined in this humorous and bittersweet collection of 10-minute plays.
Sept. 10-13 — “The Little Prince”: A world-weary aviator meets a regal “little man” in the Sahara Desert.
Oct. 15-18 — “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians”: Martians, upset that their children have become obsessed with TV shows from Earth which extol the virtues of Santa Claus, start an expedition to kidnap the one and only Santa.
Nov. 19-22 — “Elf: The Musical Jr.”: Buddy, a young orphan, mistakenly crawls into Santa’s bag of gifts and is transported to the North Pole.
Feb. 17-21 — “Anne of Green Gables”: An adaptation of the classic novel.
April 21-24 — “My Son Pinocchio”: The story from Geppetto’s point of view.
May 26-28 — “Romeo & Juliet”: Shakespeare’s classic tragedy in modern English.
June 2016 — “The Boxcar Children”: Frightened to live with a grandfather they have never met, the children make a home for themselves in an old abandoned red boxcar they discover in the woods.
Details at artslivetheatre.com.
"The first and most important thing I try to teach is learning to direct focus," Taylor says. "Where do you put your focus? How do you control it? This skill can benefit you throughout life in every situation.
"Theater also teaches so much about teamwork. You get to work in a team where everyone is equal; even if someone has a bigger role than you, it takes every part to tell the story. It is a great lesson in life to understand that not everyone can have the big role, but that doesn't mean they are more important than anyone else.
"And, when it comes to the practicality of actually auditioning, this where you learn the biggest lesson of all. First of all, the courage just to go to the audition is a huge accomplishment, but the biggest lesson comes from NOT getting cast. It is a hard one, but knowing how to not take it personally and not get discouraged and how to develop tenacity and get back on that horse can benefit you forever in life."
"We hear so many stories of parents just stunned at the change in their child after one rehearsal," Smith adds. "They're in a supportive and loving environment -- but we demand a lot of the kids at the same time."
And the youngsters rise to the challenge, whether it's adapting a hilariously bad movie into a play audiences love -- like Reed Carson's "House on Haunted Hill" -- or creating characters in new scripts by Smith -- this year, "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians."
"Who doesn't want to see that?" Smith asks rhetorically of the play based on the 1964 film with Pia Zadora. "I just like the premise of the children of Mars wanting Santa Claus to come visit them so badly that they go kidnap him!"
The October production will be the first of two adaptations in the 2015-16 season. The second will be "The Boxcar Children," written by Caroline Elser, an Arts Live actor and playwright. Wrapping around those new additions will be titles recognizable to ALT fans.
"We look for things that are going to have a broad appeal to our students but also to an audience," Smith says. "Audiences like to have something familiar or at least a familiar element when they go to see a show. And we do like community hooks, educational hooks. We just finished 'The Giver,' and Lois Lowry is coming to the Fayetteville Public Library in October. So we're talking with them about doing something in conjunction with that."
Meanwhile, Smith is shepherding Arts Live's continued growth. After coming aboard as a director in 2002 and moving on to become a teacher, artistic director and then executive director, he's taken the company from two or three shows a season to eight, six of them staged in Arts Live's permanent home on Sang Avenue and the other two at the Global Campus on the Fayetteville square. He's also keeping track of more than 300 youngsters and at least 10 instructors, all of whom share his passion.
I cannot tell you how thrilling it is to watch a young person find a new way to look at life and a new way to express themselves," Taylor says. "There is nothing like helping young people to find the excitement for theater -- like I still have. But when you are discovering it, it is the best thing in the world!"
NAN What's Up on 07/17/2015