Last week, I sat down for a moment with Kathleen Bryant, Artistic Director of the Madison Community Theater. She is quite the busy woman. We talked during her lunch break at Morgan County Middle School where she is the drama teacher. This school year, Bryant was named system-wide Teacher of the Year.
Okay, how did all this start: The MCT was incorporated in 2005, but we started in 2002. We started under the name Children’s Community Chorus. Our first show as “The Tale of Three Trees.” It morphed from there. Our Board decided to change the name to Madison Community Theater to include all ages, especially the older children. Shortly after we changed the name, we got non-profit status.
After 25 performances, is this what you envisioned when you started: Honestly, I went to a very large Methodist Church in Louisville, Kentucky. They always had a children’s musical camp. They produced a children’s musical that was Christian-related. I thought ~ I’m going to do this in Madison. For several years, we just did a summer show. It was crazy, working everyday, all day for two weeks to pull it together. But there was such interest, we added more shows. We have evolved into having an actual season with a straight play in the fall, big musical in the winter, sometimes something smaller in June, then a July camp.
So if wasn’t a vision at the beginnging, could you articulate a vision now? “The Sky’s the Limit,” we always tease. We have so little as far as space. We don’t really have a theater. WE don’t really have the technology that the other counties have, but we pride ourselves on finding a way to make whatever we need to make on stage happen ~ happen. We’ve had flying people, pyrotechnics, minimal sets and elaborate ones. It doesn’t matter where we are or what we have ~ the skies the limit.
You’ve given so much of yourself to this program for a number of years, why? What drives me in this whole thing is finding good stories and presenting it to the community. Growing up in Moultrie, Georiga, we had a very developed Fine Arts and Cultural Center program, but we had to wait till high school to do anything. There was nothing for kids. This is a theater program to open the door for younger kids. The vision is to keep the door open for younger kids.
What is your theater background? My training is vocal and performing, so I come to this as a performer. But anytime I go to an International Thespian Society (ITS) or InternationalTheater Association I am in training and going constantly to any professional workshop I can to learn. All that has helped me grow as a director.
It is not about becoming a star; it’s about personal growth on stage. Building something that is maybe bigger than somethings they could do by themselves. To see young people develop is unbelievable.
Check out the MCT website http://www.mctheater.org/.
