Play time is just beginning. When Evan Mousseau (MSB ’11) came to Georgetown this fall, education was not just about his classes. Having worked for a children’s theater program both during the summer and throughout his high school career, he has brought his interest and talent here to the Hilltop through his involvement with the Georgetown Players, an on-campus acting troupe. Mousseau is involved in their children’s theater program, which produces off-beat plays for children and performs them at various venues throughout the D.C. area. After taking part in the group’s fall production, Mousseau will be directing their next play, “The Prince Who Couldn’t Talk.”

How are the Georgetown Players organized?
They have two separate groups. They have their improv troupe and their children’s theater program, and from what I have gathered from my work with them first semester, because the [children’s] theater program is all volunteer, they needed some way to fund that, so they took the revenues from ticket sales at the improv shows and used them to fund the children’s theater group.

What is different with the program this year? This is the first time in several years that they have two productions in one year. There are several weeks of rehearsals and then a preview show for the Georgetown community and professors who bring their students, and then essentially we take the show on tour. We go to various after-school programs and Boys and Girls Clubs, and they perform the show there. We also took the show to the pediatrics department of the Georgetown University Hospital and performed for kids there.

What show did you perform this fall? “Peggy the Pint-Sized Pirate,” so obviously something that not many people had heard of before. It was about a small pirate that wants to prove that she can be a pirate, and that [idea] fits in with one of the goals of children’s theater, which is to teach messages through the show.

How are the tours organized?
It depends on the show. Generally each show, they get a tour manager and, depending on the ideal age of the show, then the tour manager calls people and asks them to get together a group of those aged students if you want us to come by.

What age group do the plays target?
It changes per show, but the pirate show focused on students between the first and third grade age group.

Were you involved in children’s theater in high school?
I was involved. We actually had a children’s theater group in my high school, and that experience was really what led me to audition here in the fall.

What are you performing this semester?
The show this semester is called “The Prince Who Wouldn’t Talk.” The preview show is on March 17 here, and then we will start touring that week, but probably only after we get back from Easter break.

What is the play about?
The title is pretty self explanatory, but you have a prince whose parents think that he can’t talk because they never really give him a chance to say anything, and they think they have a major problem on their hands, so they send him to a bunch of crazy wizards, and then — well I’m not going to tell you what happens. People should go see it. You are the director of the spring performance. Have you had any experience directing before? I haven’t directed college students before, but I direct a summer theater program in my town [in New Hampshire] in the summer, and I will be working there again this summer doing their 10-year production. I also have some experience directing in high school, but it is going to be a little different directing people who are older than me rather than 10 years younger.

How many people are involved?
I’m not sure exactly. We had a cast this fall of around eight with a director and producer and then other people that want to get involved with set design and a tour manager, so it’s a pretty small group — probably under 15. There are a good number of freshman actors, but it does go all through the ages.

Where do you go on tour?
We stayed within the D.C. area. I think we only ended up doing four shows in the fall semester, and we were looking to do more, but there were a few places that ended up canceling on us.

Where do you perform and practice here at Georgetown?
We performed in Bulldog Alley, but we have practice space in the Village C classroom. Auditions took place Wednesday, yesterday, and [this coming] Monday from 7:00 to 11:00.

Do you prefer acting before an older audience or a younger audience?
I do enjoy them both, but I really enjoy this aspect of children’s theater where it’s theater for a social cause to show the impact that performance and to show the impact of performing for entertainment value but also to show the educational impact while entertaining.
— Interview by Meghan Keneally