By CAROL SOUTH
TRAVERSE CITY -- The Old Town Playhouse tapped a native daughter and theater veteran to enhance their educational focus and guide the successful Traverse City Children's Theatre.
Mychelle Hopkins, a 1976 Benzie Central High School graduate, brings three decades of theater experience to the mix, stirring together a resume that includes acting, production, directing, administration and teaching. Not to mention completing a master's degree at the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, where she was a Fulbright scholar.
Joining the Old Town Playhouse in an expanded job description as education director, Hopkins will develop, implement and expand programming for all ages.
The mission synthesizes her decades of experience both on stage and behind the scenes.
"I have been a theater professional my entire adult life and I've always had fingers in children's theater -- always directing, always performing and always had an interest in education," Hopkins said.
Having toured extensively and done years of summer stock, she also has lots of theater stories. While relishing her varied experiences based throughout the United States, her two years in England were a theater junkies' dream, both as a scholar and audience member.
"I've seen 'Winter's Tale' in Russian and, when in Venice, 'Twelfth Night' in Italian," said Hopkins. "I've seen everything from no props and no costumes to shows at the Royal Shakespeare Company where they spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a production -- and everything in between."
Jumping right away into her chosen profession, her first theater gig out of high school was playing Eliza Doolitle in "My Fair Lady" at the Old Town Playhouse. Phil Murphy, her current boss and executive director of the Playhouse, played Professor Henry Higgins.
Both went on to have professional careers and kept remotely in touch, reconnecting more once the e-mail era emerged. When the position opened up in the spring, Murphy let Hopkins know about it and she was one of a number of qualified candidates who applied.
Her range of experience in so many components of theater, including children's theater, tipped the balance.
"We had wonderful candidates and a difficult choice but the one thing is that Mychelle just brought so much to the table," Murphy said.
For Hopkins, the return north with her family -- husband and playwright Steve Smith and two young children -- was an answer to a prayer.
"I love the area, skiing and summer sports, but (returning) was always something that was a pipe dream," said Hopkins, noting the scarcity of full-time theater jobs with benefits -- not just in Traverse City but anywhere. "(My husband) was excited because of all the film production up here."
When she applied for the opening, the timing was right. Hopkins' 15-year tenure with the Kalamazoo Civic Theater ended after a reorganization and she had returned to piecing together a living like so many other arts professionals. An adjunct professor position in Western Michigan University's theater department had held steady for years, a teaching opportunity she greatly enjoyed.
Her philosophy is that theater students of all ages, including adults, benefit from immersing themselves into the multi-disciplinary field. From teamwork, music, dancing and technical proficiency to acting, literature and history, the theater is a melting pot of talents and challenges.
"Theater isn't discrete, it's really a synthesis of a lot of art forms," said Hopkins, who also has a bachelor's degree in theater performance from Western. "Theater is a fabulous teacher."
Her approach dovetails with the broader vision for the Old Town Playhouse's educational role in the community, which includes offering adult classes and training, bringing services to schools and reaching out to connect plays presented with the community.
"One of the goals of hiring the education director, whether Mychelle or someone else, was to leverage what we had been doing with the Children's Theatre as it applied to the adult theater," Murphy said.
For more information on the Old Town Playhouse, see www.oldtownplayhouse.com; for more information on the Traverse City Children's Theatre, see www.tcctheatre.org.
