Montana Actors' Theatre is finding ways to keep performing

Montana Actors' Theatre is continuing to find ways to perform after the COVID-19 pandemic derailed its planned season last year.

The pandemic hit Montana, and the college campuses in the state including Montana State University-Northern's were closed, the week MAT was planning to open its production of "Mama Mia."

That production and the MAT dinner theater and its planned production of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" all were postponed and have yet to hit the stage, but the acting troupe has stayed active with youth programs over the summer and into this year.

And new activities are coming out as well.

Friday, Montana Actors' Theatre is hosting "Shakespeare Out of the Box: Whose Bard is it Anyway?" at 7 p.m. on their YouTube channel. 

The piece consists of a few recorded scenes starring Shakespeare's characters from different plays who meet each other. The actors depict how the characters would react to meeting each other based on their roles in the original plays.

Last year in April, MAT hosted streaming readings from every Shakespearean play and some poems - with readings coming from overseas as well as across the United States, Montana and local area.

MAT tentatively plans to have a live performance of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer's Night Dream" in June. It will be an outdoor performance. 

MAT is planning to perform the delayed "Mamma Mia" in September. The set still sits on the stage and the cast is ready to go with only a few replacements due to some of the actors moving away, MAT Artistic Director Grant Olson said. 

"They get to rehearse the whole time with the set that's already in place. So, that's kind of cool," Olson said. 

The youth clinics began in February and are still running smoothly.

The annual youth production and children's workshops also are planned to be held again this summer. MAT is still working on the logistics of the workshops to make sure everything is done safely and to the standards of the health department and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Olson said.