DENVER — When kids take on adult roles, the tougher parts of growing up come with a quick learning curve.
“That was unacceptable. Let’s not do that again. Before you leave, you clean up your stuff," director Grayson Allensworth said to the cast of "Be More Chill."
Allensworth is 14 and in eighth grade.
"As a director, like these are all my best friends, but you have to keep the friendliness outside of this room," he said.
Allensworth is not only directing and acting in this musical, but he started a theater company with co-founders Maya Eisbart and Ian Johnson, also eighth graders.
He said their LLC was approved for New Generation Productions last week.
"There isn’t a lot of opportunity as a middle schooler there," Allensworth said about his school, Denver School of the Arts. "That kind of comes in high school, and because of the pandemic I wasn’t doing any theater and I was kind of losing my passion for it. And then my theater teacher said something that stuck with me. That was, 'if you don’t see an opportunity, become the opportunity.' So I decided to become the opportunity."
They started with six people and their first show last year.
This production is even bigger, and the only adult takes direction from his eighth-grade son.
“Dad, wait for blackout," Allensworth told his dad about one of the music cues.
The teenagers leading the production do admit it's stressful, but it's their passion.
“It’s not like if I was doing math," Allensworth said. "It’s not like if I was running a financial business."
But there are finances involved in running a production company.
Tickets are on sale now for performances running Thursday through Sunday at the Rocky Mountain Theatre for Kids in Englewood.
Allensworth said any money they make will go into future productions.
They plan to work on three theater productions a year, and get into film as well.
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