Missoula Children’s Theatre camp presents King Athur’s Quest July 28-29 at the Historic Holmes Theatre in Detroit Lakes

Detroit Lakes, Minn. (KDLM) – Missoula Children’s Theatre will perform King Arthur’s Quest this Friday and Saturday at the Historic Holmes Theatre in Detroit Lakes

The travelling children’s theatre production travels around the country and spends a week at each destination with area kids. The kids then learn a play or musical and perform it at on an area stage at the end of the week.

Kel Hunter, a traveling actor/director for Missoula Children’s Theatre, said every week is a new experience.

“It’s just one week, that’s how we do it, every week,” said Hunter. “Next week we’ll be in a different town and the week after that, a different one. Last week, we were just in Pipestone, Minnesota.”

Quinn Rollar, also a traveling actor/director from the children’s theatre, said the attendance for the theatre camps can vary between about a dozen kids to more than 60 depending on the location, but, no matter what town they are in, the kids who come out seem to really love the experience.

“It really is a pleasure to see these kids really light-up, especially when we add music,” said Rollar. “For some reason, that seems to be the things that really engages them. So seeing these kids, who at our auditions, may not have been speaking the loudest … seeing them come alive with this music of, especially our show ‘Kind Arthur’s Quest,’ it’s so fun and bouncy, they just light up with joy. It’s so much fun.”

Rollar added many of the areas they travel to don’t have a large community theatre, so for many, it’s their first experience on a stage.

“It’s so incredibly emotionally fulfilling to watch these kids, many of whom have never had a theatre experience, or any form of true arts exposure,” said Rollar. “So, it’s really wonderful to be their first exposure to the arts and what it means to be on stage and perform.”

Hunter said both he and Rollar were blown away by the kids attending this week’s camp in Detroit Lakes because they were rehearsing off-book after two days, which is something that typically takes longer for most kids to realize they need to commit their parts to memory.

“(Memorization) is something that isn’t normally a question until Thursday,” said Hunter. “And we closed our books, and I’ll be darned if they didn’t do all the lines, cue-to-cue, and they nailed them. So, they called my bluff.”

Lakes area kids will be performing King Arthur’s Quest at the Historic Holmes Theatre in Detroit Lakes on Friday, July 28 at 7 p.m. and on Saturday, July 29 at 10:30 a.m.

The directors also both agreed that even though they don’t sell floral bouquets at the performance that shouldn’t stop parents of these child actors from cleaning out their area florists before Friday because these kids deserve it.

Detroit Lakes , MN (KDLM)-

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