By DIANE GASPER-O’BRIEN
Special to Hays Post
What started as a way to help out the high school play 13 years ago has turned into a phenomenal opportunity for youngsters in a six-county area in northwest Kansas.
The Main Street Summer Theater Festival—developed by the Main Street Arts Council in Hoxie—has now expanded to six communities, all in different counties.
Led by two local musical/theatrical icons, the 2024 festival is in its seventh year, and this summer provided more than 225 youngsters ages 5 to 18 opportunities to explore their creativity on stage.
This is all free to participants because the program is funded through various grants and local donations and fundraisers.
“I don’t like the pay-to-play concept. It excludes too many kids,” said Bonnie Cameron, creative director of the Main Street Arts Council and show director of the summer festival. “I want this program to be available to any child.”
Qualifications to participate are simple.
“We just ask them to put the work in and have good behavior and try their best,” Cameron said.
Karl Pratt, executive director of the Main Street Arts Council and festival manager, said they have the children take ownership in the productions.
“Over the years, we have had the kids help sell tickets to the shows and contribute baked goods for bake sales after their performances,” he said. “That makes it possible to plant seeds for the next year’s festival.”
Work on the shows begins in May following spring auditions.
Cognizant of how busy summer schedules can be for youngsters, the directors hold practices for one hour a day, four days a week.
“That’s the model we have found that works the best,” Pratt said. “We really require the kids to do their homework and practice at home. We hold them accountable, and they always come through.”
Cameron agreed.
“We hold them to a pretty high standard,” she said. “They have to come in with their lines learned and be ready to go.”
How it all began
A born musician who has studied abroad and performed opera professionally in Europe, Cameron returned to her hometown in 2011.
After helping Hoxie High School with its spring play in 2012, she decided to direct the summer community production “Snow White.”
“After that, everyone was asking, ‘What are we doing next year?’ ” Cameron said. “I remember thinking, ‘I guess we just started something.’”
That something soon developed into a full-fledged festival as more and more youngsters jumped on board.
The Main Street Arts Council was formed as a nonprofit organization in 2015, and the summer theater festival was started shortly thereafter.
The festival quickly expanded, with shows added at Atwood, Goodland, Colby, Quinter and Oakley.
Coincidentally, all six towns in which the productions are performed are in different counties, giving more children the chance to participate.
“A big part of our mission is to provide that opportunity at home so they don’t have to travel three to four hours away to participate in something like this,” Pratt said. “There is a lot of untapped talent in their own backyard that you don’t know about until they have an opportunity to express it.”
“It was very organic, knowing other teachers and talking about what we were doing in Hoxie,” Cameron said. “All of a sudden, it was getting bigger and bigger.”
The council has acquired more than 3,000 costume pieces and many other materials over the years, and they are all stored for next year’s use.
“We’ve gathered materials for more than 20 different shows,” Pratt said. “That allows us to recycle materials and stage them in different communities year after year.”
While the starting age to participate is 5, a younger sibling occasionally will be able to get on stage. For example, this year, 4-year-old Kolbe Schrick got to join his three older brothers and sisters in the “Honk!” production in Colby.
Cameron said it’s not unusual for entire families to participate.
This year, the Atwood production of “Aladdin” featured all but one of the seven sons of Mike and Shandi Sayre.
Shandi Sayer is one of several parents in the communities who go above and beyond to help out backstage during performances.
“We are always grateful for the help of parents and other volunteers, especially during performance weeks, when it’s all hands on deck for the finishing touches to put on a show,” Pratt said.
Learning by doing
Student interns are funded through the Nex-Generation Round Up for Youth organization, and they continue to enjoy preparing for the productions—just in a different role.
“It’s a lot more complicated than I thought,” said Hailey Vaughn, a junior-to-be at Hoxie High School this fall.
Vaughn served as an intern this year after performing for five years.
“I’ve learned so much, how the show all comes together behind the scenes,” she said.
Vaughn is thinking of pursuing nursing when she goes off to college in two years. She said she will take valuable life lessons from the summer theater festivals with her, no matter what career path she chooses.
“I’ve learned how to work with a lot of different age groups and how to communicate with them,” she said. “It’s been a great experience. When you work together like this, you build a big family. And once a year, we get together with that family.”
Intern Tori Rucker has been involved with the summer festival since she was 10 years old.
A 2024 Fort Hays State University graduate, Rucker will begin her professional career in education this fall as a sixth-grade science and social studies teacher in Russell.
Like Vaughn, Rucker said she has learned many life lessons.
“I’ve really developed my classroom management skills through the festival and how I want to be a teacher,” she said. “You can have strict expectations but still be able to have fun.”
One of the many duties of a student intern includes building sets for the productions. Rucker has a real knack for that skill, which she learned from her dad, Ed, while helping him in years past.
This year, Rucker added another task to her summer duties and directed the Quinter production of “Shrek The Musical.”
As the 2024 summer season winds down, Rucker said she realized how being a teacher had many parallels with directing a play.
“Everything I’ve learned at school about being a teacher, I was able to put into action here,” she said. “This summer was a breeze with the kids.”
Cameron moved to Chicago about a year ago but vows to keep returning each summer to help direct shows in the music theater festival back home.
She said she “was busting at the seams” while watching “Shrek The Musical” in Quinter the weekend of July 13-14.
“Tori has grown up with us, and this summer she did it all,” Cameron said. “That’s so rewarding to see how she has taken to what we are doing so well and loves it. Shrek was phenomenal. I was so proud of her.”
This season will conclude with the "Alice in Wonderland" production on Aug. 2 and 3 in Oakley.
“We are so grateful to everyone who has made this summer’s theater festival possible,” Pratt said. “The hard work and talent that these amazing kids give to us all summer long—added with a dash of blessings from the theater gods—continue to culminate in better and better performances each year.”
To learn more about the Main Street Arts Council and to view photos from past performances, visit www.mainstreetartscouncil.com.