A litmus test for actors: The joy and challenge of performing theater for young audiences

Throughout the fall, James Randolph and Lorelei Frank learned a lot of valuable lessons while performing a modern twist on the classic fairy tale “Red Riding Hood” produced by Florida Studio Theatre and presented at many schools in the Sarasota-Bradenton area.

Allison Gregory’s interpretation features just two actors who play all the parts, with Randolph as an apparently famous actor named Wolfgang trying to present his one-man version of the story. But he is interrupted by a delivery person carrying a mysterious package and a desire to get into the act.

The two actors play multiple roles, but there are dozens of other people equally involved in the production – the elementary and middle school students watching intently, cheering, laughing, looking bored, occasionally booing and expressing just about every emotion and reaction you can imagine.

As the show moves to a regular weekend performance schedule in the Keating Theatre as part of the FST Children’s Theatre series, Randolph and Frank, two of the company’s 2023-24 acting apprentices, have joined a large club of actors whose careers were enhanced by performing for young audiences.

It takes confidence, patience, clear intentions and more to satisfy the desires of the youngest viewers.

“I was nervous,” Randolph said. “I know kids are honest, brutally honest. If they like something, you’ll know it, and if they hate something, you’ll get the boos. I don’t know how comedy hits in kids’ heads. Some of the jokes we had in place, I hoped they found them funny. Once in front of the kids, I could see they’re smart. They catch little comedy bits.”

Frank said it was trial by fire the first time they visited a school. “We had kindergarten and first graders. A lot of them were very loud and they had never seen a show of any kind before. I learned you can not pause. Any time you take to think, you can’t. You lose them immediately. Now we’ve gotten it, we know they work.”

The actors can usually tell by the reactions of the audience what grades the students are in. There’s a big difference between kindergarten through second grade and grades 3-5, for example.

Younger kids are definitely rowdier,” said Randolph, who begins each performance by offering some instructions on behavior and focus to help the kids understand how to react and when it’s ok to make noise.

“That was hard to get into initially,” he said. “Do I do it as a character or as myself? We’re trying to show them that this is how we’re going to approach the show. I do this device where I raise my hand to make them quiet. Lorelei gave me the great idea to make them work for it, ask them some questions to make sure they got it, that they’re paying attention. I’ve learned how to wrangle their focus.”

Acting Apprentice program

Randolph and Frank are among 10 acting apprentices at FST this season who take on a variety of roles during their year in Sarasota. They include school performances and Children’s Theatre programs, like the recent holiday favorite “Deck the Halls,” and the spring production of new plays written by young audiences through the company’s Write-a-Play program.

Sammy Pontello, a 2021-22 season apprentice who is now pursuing his Master of Fine Arts in acting at the University of Tennessee, said he had no idea what to expect when he first came to FST, other than he would be working a lot.

“I had done some theater for young audiences in Orlando. It speaks to the same things that we tell in plays for grownups, it just makes it more accessible to younger minds,” he said. His expectations for his apprentice year were exceeded 10 times over and helped him grow as an actor.

“I never could have guessed how much would be asked of me as a performer and the gifts we could give kids,” he said.

Regina Famatigan, who was in the program with Pontello, spent much of her season traveling to schools with the Playmakers tour, offering improvised shows intended to encourage students to write their own plays.

She majored in political theory and came to the apprenticeship with little theater experience.

“I grew up with music and was active in choir, but there was no active theater in my schools as a kid. That’s why I wanted to do this acting apprenticeship,” she said. “I love theater and performance and theory but had no actual sense of the reality of theater. Could I immerse myself and still enjoy it? It was very much getting thrown off the deep end. It made me stronger, gave me an idea of what a life in the arts would be like.”

Famatigan loved the experience.

“One of the first things they said when we began rehearsals was that kids are honest. If they’re bored you know. They don’t hide behind a veil of theater etiquette,” she said. “They will laugh if it’s time to laugh. I loved feeding off that energy.”

Impact of performing for kids

Famatigan said her experience gave a different perspective on understanding the stories and characters she was playing, in part because of the broad range of styles and ideas actors must provide for young audiences. “You’re playing things you never expected – popcorn, toothpaste, a lion in a hat.”

And it prepared her for variety. She auditioned for an off-Broadway show in which two actors play four different characters in quick succession. “That didn’t faze me,” she said. On the day of a recent interview, Famatigan was performing a scene for a horror film “where I get axed in the face. It’s things that will never happen. But I also will never be popcorn. These are worthwhile skills for any actor to have. A lot of actors can be intimidated by that, but it was good at helping me recognize what my strengths are and what I have to work on.”

After his apprenticeship, Pontello came back to appear in the 2023 Summer New Play Reading Festival. He said some actors have a bias against performing in theater for young audiences.

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“What they don’t realize is that working for children is the best litmus test to see if you can be honest on stage. If they don’t believe you, they will show it on their face and start talking to tell you how bad you are. There is brutal honesty from audiences who are young, but that’s an incredible gift for actors.”

In their touring performances of “Red Riding Hood,” Randolph and Frank kept tabs on which actor the students would favor.

“It was always interesting whose side they pick. A lot of it is us trying to get them on our side,” Frank said. They both learned to adapt to the response. There’s a moment when her character suggests she tell the story instead of Wolfgang. “The first few times, kids would say, no leave. Now they’re more like, ‘Tell us the story.’ If we want to open the package that I deliver, I ask, should we? For the first few weeks, they’d say no, but now they’re more comfortable because we’re more comfortable with them.”

‘Red Riding Hood’

By Alison Gregory. Runs Saturdays and select Sundays Jan. 7-Feb. 10 in the Keating Theatre at Florida Studio Theatre, 1241 N. Palm Ave., Sarasota. $10. 941-366-9000; floridastudiotheatre.org

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This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Young audiences provide strong test for Sarasota acting apprentices