An Interview with James McClain

While reporting on the development of the new home for Bellevue Youth Theatre, City Arts spoke with tough-talking Texan, James McClain, who has been the theatre's director since the beginning. Chatting in the food court at Crossroads mall, he revealed the inspiration and innovation that has kept one of the Eastside's strongest arts organizations going for almost 20 yers.

James McClain

City Arts: How did you get here?

James McClain: I’m from Fort Worth. I got an MA in theatre from Texas Women’s University. I lived in Texas for 33 years and I decided I needed to go somewhere where I could practice what I learned. The conditions in Texas are very different. There’s...a lot of poverty. I came up here and started working for the YMCA, then Boys & Girls’ Club and then City of Bellevue. I was hired as the rec coordinator for the arts. Over the years the theatre grew and it became a city-wide program in ‘95.

So that’s in the 90s. Was Bellevue very different then?

At that point, my casts in the theatre program at Crossroads community center were about 90% African American, 10% white. It’s a very changing area. One of the things people don’t know is that Crossroads is the only low-income area on the Eastside. People think of Bellevue as this really rich area with lots of money, people driving BMWs, but it’s not.

How did the program become what it is – a place that focuses on inclusion above even the artistic vision?

My graduate project for theatre at TWU was that everyone who auditioned would get a part.  And my professors told me I was nuts – that it wasn’t practical in the real world. I said “I got to try it.” So I did. It was a show called Heaven Can Wait. And everybody who auditioned got a part – all thirty-two of them. I learned a lot from that process.

What inspired you to create the model?

When I was in high school, I usually got cast pretty good. They always needed a bad guy or someone in a supporting role – and those were my forte. But some of my friends never got cast. It was bumming me out, socially. I didn’t have anybody to hang out with! I was with these other actors that I didn’t particularly care for.  So, I thought, wouldn’t it be neat if everybody got cast?”

When I started directing, I had shows with four to five people in them, and twenty-five people auditioning. Once you've got your cast of five people, you’ve got twenty people who can’t be a part of it. Well, in the adult world, that’s fine, because you’re in a profession where you expect to be rejected for what you look like and how you sound and that sort of stuff. Kids don’t need rejection. They get enough of it in their lives.

For me, a guy who wanted to work with youth, it just seemed like a natural way to go about things.

Now, does that mean you can do these really meaty pieces that have four actors?  Nah. But if you believe in the growth of kids, the program makes sense. If you believe it’s only about theatre, it’s not gonna happen.

You’re about to celebrate a 20th anniversary season, how has the program changed?

Up to 1995 we were nothing but kids. Then we started seeing some value in having adults playing parts, because it gives the shows some credibility. Then we started working with the Highland Center; we did a couple of joint shows with them and started realizing we have a perfect vehicle for persons with disabilities because they can come into a show and it’s a level playing field. We write up to their abilities – so it becomes less about their disabilities. Then we started working with the retired folks out in North Bellevue. Suddenly, the program started looking like the community.

How much a part of the program is “acting training”?

Our program has never been about making actors and big stars. You see these kids growing up and they’re becoming Boeing engineers, veterinarians. And then you see subtle changes with some kids – they start feeling good about themselves because they’ve got a place to go and something to be a part of. It’s very cool.

I love the part at the end of the show, when everybody comes out to bow. All these people in the stands come out and intermingle with all these people on the stage and we have a basic little community gathering afterwards.

Our cast parties are like that.  You see kids whose parents are lawyers and doctors out there dancing and having a good time with kids who are in section 8 housing. They start to learn off each other. They start growing.  They see people working with a person with a disability – and they learn, maybe, it’s not so bad.  They think, "maybe I shouldn’t be scared of them."

My generation, we didn’t know what a person with disabilities was. Then I started meeting people with Down's syndrome or cerebral palsy or worked with people in wheelchairs at Crossroads, and they were fantastic. And I see them work so hard for what we take for granted.

The other thing that has happened for me is I have seen the audiences that used to attend theatre whittle down to grey-haired folks. If I have one hundred kids to go through, I'll bet you ninety-seven of them aren’t going to be actors. But they will go see theatre because they’ve learned that love of a live performance. They will become the audiences of America. I’m helping create that next generation of theatre-goers.

If I have one hundred kids, ninety-seven of them aren’t going to be actors. But they will go see theatre because they’ve learned that love of a live performance.

I’m here for these kids. If a kid doesn’t show up for rehearsals we call them up and find out why. If they’re falling behind in school, you kick them out of rehearsal and tell them to go get their grades up. We always tell them: school first, family second and BYT third.

In the history of your performances, what have been memorable shows?

We did a series of Martin Luther King plays from 1995 to 2002 – they were the most emotional moving plays. We did Alice in Wonderland in 2003 — there were 175 people involved in that show. That’s when I realized that too much is too much. It was insane. I was a traffic cop.  That’s all I did — point and say, "you go here, you go here."

But one of my favorite shows to do is Miracle on 34th Street, because it’s about believing in an idea that no one else believes in.  That will open up our 20th anniversary season this November.

How do you adapt shows to accomodate on-stage roles for all these people?

You do a lot of groupings. Instead of an ostrich, you have six ostriches. Instead of a monkey, you have twenty monkeys. You just got to be creative, figure it out, have fun writing it, give them a lot to do. We learned early on that music covers a lot of woes. Have them dance, have them sing, and everybody’s happy.

How did you feel about the benefit held at the Westin in February to raise funds for the Bellevue Youth Theatre Foundation?

I think that the program we put on was good. It was politically a strong program in terms of partnering with other organizations...I would have liked to see more people there that didn’t know anything about the program. That gets more conversations go on – and people wondering if the model will work where they are. It’s about more people doing what I do. I like competition. I want people to do what I do. 

I noticed several standing ovations erupt for you at the event, how did you feel about that?

I’ve always been humble about the applause thing. I’m a public servant. I get paid well to do theatre.  And I recognize that.  The reality is, while I maybe fortunate to oversee this, I’ve had a lot of help. I’ve had the people who were willing to spend the 80+ hours to get a show up; to sew the costumes, to hang lights, to go out and raise the money so you have the lights. When you can keep people inspired, they’ll do great things for you.

That’s what I’m good at. Which is good, because people’ll tell you that my writing is suspect or my directing was shoddy [laughs].

I think everyone in that room knows that my first interest is those kids. That part, I hope, never changes. I’ve said, when I get too old to relate to the kids, I probably need to retire. Though their music is starting to annoy me a little bit, everything else seems fine.

If you could appeal to the community for anything: what would it be?

I want them to get involved.