Here is what David Lavelley, the executive director of the Center for Arts in Natick, was thinking: “We’re only a seven-minute walk from each other.”
Over the downtown bridge and up Walnut Street will get you from TCAN’s Summer Street space to the steps of the Walnut Hill School for the Performing Arts.
Why not do business together, Lavelley thought, especially in the area of youth theater?
And so a collaboration was born. TCAN will work closely with Walnut Hill in an effort to energize both programs, providing greater resources in the performing arts for area children, organizers said.
“This is going to be very good for everybody,” said Kristy Pace, who runs TCAN’s 12-week youth theater summer program.
“It’s a tremendous opportunity for both organizations,” said Newton resident Michele Levy, Walnut Hill’s chief production director.
The two organizations are not alone in deciding to pair up to improve arts offerings in their community.
In Watertown, the Arsenal Center for the Arts aligned July 1 with the 30-year-old Watertown Children’s Theatre.
“I’m very excited; we’ve been working on this for a year,” said Dinah Lane, the head of Watertown Children’s Theatre. “It’s all under the auspices of the arts center. We’ll be sharing space. It’s always been our dream to have a full arts center and children’s theater together.”
The groups have done some collaborative work in the past, she said, “but this is formal. It cuts through the barriers. Our missions are similar. The staffs will be working closely together.”
A number of programs, such as piano, dance, voice lessons, as well as a professional stage for performances, are areas in which the children’s theater will benefit from the Arsenal center’s resources.
“Their resident artists can work with our children,” said Lane. “We’re going to be offering master classes,” where experienced actors talk to the children about theater.
“It just gets better now,” said Lane.
Meanwhile, in Natick, Lavelley and Walnut Hill’s head of school, Antonio Viva, are of the same mind about the collaboration.
Walnut Hill can provide great teaching sources for the TCAN youth program, as well as master class instruction and use of the nationally recognized school’s performance space.
With Walnut Hill’s abundant space and resources, TCAN’s Lavelley said, “we can build our sets there now. We can share a box office and storage.” He plans to take advantage of Walnut Hill’s “extremely talented faculty.” Working with the school, Lavelley added, is “a key part of how we can create a new synergy.
“We could offer children’s theater classes and workshops,” said Viva. “We can give kids something they can be passionate about.”
Walnut Hill students are not strangers to the downtown Natick facility. “They’ve performed at TCAN, and the kids in the audience get inspired because they want to do what the Walnut Hill kids are doing, and that’s really a cool thing,” said Pace.“We have kids from Wellesley, Weston, Framingham, Natick, and Sherborn.”
Pace instructs 4- to 10-year-olds in musical theater, and works with 10- to 14-year-olds in staging productions that the kids have written.
Some children who started with TCAN have gone on to attend Walnut Hill, which, besides its name recognition, offers a rigorous curriculum.
Pace said TCAN and Walnut Hill is “a perfect partnership.” TCAN can use Walnut Hill as a goal for their students.
“We give our children the base knowledge to audition for Walnut Hill shows,” said Pace. She says the collaboration allows her students to advance from their small space at TCAN and “go up to the big pond, Walnut Hill, where they’re able to go to the next level.’’
In Watertown, Lane also sees opportunity in the new partnership. As founder of Watertown Children’s Theatre, she recalled “holding rehearsals in our backyard and building sets in the driveway.”
Lane moved to Watertown in 1976. “I just started putting on shows in 1983. The first was ‘Once Upon A Mattress.’ We did it at the high school,” she said.
Lane said the tie-in with the Arsenal Center for the Arts has created “a very enthusiastic response from parents and board members.”
Sharon Glennon, the arts center’s executive director, said “it makes sense for us’’ to merge with the children’s theater ensemble. “We share the same mission. This is really exciting for us.”
Watertown resident Alison Roberts had two daughters go through the children’s theater: Natalia, now at Yale, and Sasha, a senior at Cambridge Rindge & Latin High. Natalia started seeing shows when she was 4.
“She noticed what was going on and thought, ‘OK, that seems like fun,’ ” said Roberts. Natalia did shows from grades 5 through 8. “She was a sailor in ‘South Pacific,’ ” said her mother. “Her last show was ‘Peter Pan.’
“Watertown Children’s Theatre was a very supportive environment. Natalia felt safe. It helped her grow, to take more risks,’’ said Roberts. “Mostly, it was really fun”
Influenced by her local experiences, Natalia worked with a children’s theater at Yale and has produced a play.
The Arsenal center, home to the professional New Repertory Theatre troupe, will have space for the children’s theater to hold rehearsals and performances there. It will also have office space for ticket sales, finances, and sundry business tasks conducted under the Arsenal center’s umbrella.
Watertown Children’s Theatre will kick off its first season under the new arrangement in the fall with the musical “How to Eat Like A Child.” After that it gets heavier: The troupe will be doing “Hamlet.”
Lenny Megliola can be reached at lennymegs@aol.com.