Missoula Children's Theatre

International tour project (red truck tour) - MCT's oldest and largest program tours throughout all the states, canada, and overseas to schools and to us military bases worldwide. In the fiscal year ended may 31, 2024, MCT conducted 974 weeklong residencies nationally and abroad. MCT's touring actor/directors (tads) tour in pairs, drive signature red trucks and work with a different cast of 55-65 children at each weekly tour stop. Tads come to town at the invitation of a community organization such as a school, parents' group, military base, arts council, youth center and more to transform several duffel bags of costumes and set pieces into a musical for the community - in less than a week. Many of these small communities are rarely visited by theatre companies. A residency entails casting local children in an original children's musical, performed for an audience after an intense week of rehearsals. Currently, MCT has 31 touring shows, all based on classic fairy tales. The residency also includes 3 art enrichment workshops. In fiscal year '24, 974 residencies was an opportunity to cast 40,498 children as cast members; teach 2,089 workshops; perform 1,583 shows; and entertain a total audience of approximately 219,070 people of all ages. MCT has incorporated an intergenerational residency week into the programming. The same scripts, costumes, and sets are used but the team auditions a cast that ranges in age from 5-105. School age children participate with senior citizens and the MCT missions of developing life skills flourishes for all those who participate.

Local children's programs (youth series) - MCT offers eight week-long day camps and three six-week performing arts classes which take place at MCT headquarters in missoula serving grades k-12. Every child who signs up is cast, and all programs culminate in performances on the MCT stage. The eight day camps feature shows in the international tour project repertoire, and the three longer classes are opportunities to stage world premieres and/or more complex shows new to missoula. Additionally, children's programs includes a 2 week-long summer camp on flathead lake for teens (performing arts camp), a week-long summer camp at seeley lake for younger teens (pac prep), and an accredited, five-week summer theatre program for high school students called next step prep. MCT also offers six, 1 day "play in a day" classes for days that school is not in session. The number of participants in these programs for the fiscal year were 517 in day camps, 213 in production classes, 170 in performing arts camp, and 125 in play in a day for total participation of 1,025 youths locally! Theatre for young audiences is a program put on each fall by MCT actors that is specifically produced for k-8 audiences. Through a collaboration with spark!, every second grader in the city is bussed to MCT to take part in the program. There are four to five shows over a two-day period, to include a performance adapted to be sensory friendly. For the fiscal year ending may 31, 2024, we were not able to carry out next step prep, but are planning to resume next fiscal year in a revised format to rebuild the program.

Community theatre (community series) - MCT typically presents a five-show series, including well-known musicals and dramas for general audiences, spanning october to may. MCT produces, directs, and designs these productions in-house. The shows present talented casts of all ages and have many repeat season ticket holders year after year. The final dress rehearsal of each show is presented for an audience, with the admission "price" being a can of food for local charities. MCT also adapts two community theatre productions each year to a sensory friendly format. This performance has a reduced ticket price and often financial assistance is available. The objective is to make the production accessible to patrons that might not otherwise attend a theatrical performance.