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Jenna Guitar laughed as she told the story, as the details have faded with time. She remembers playing an old woman, dying with dramatic flair, arms stretched skyward in a murder mystery whose title she can't recall.
She remembers being a child in the 1990s, spending part of her summer at A Children's Theatre of the Mesilla Valley, never imagining that decades later she would be back, not as an actor, but as one of the people making sure another generation of children gets the same chance. That journey says as much about the organization as any list of productions or milestones could.
This is ACT's 34th season. It is an organization that traces its roots to 1993, and while the stage has always been its classroom, those who know it best insist theater has never been the point.
"I've always said to the kids, 'I don't know if you're going to go off and continue to do this, and if you do, that's awesome,'" Guitar said. "But I definitely want you to choose just to love and appreciate the art form that is theater. Even if you choose not to do it, you go and support it. You love it from a distance. I feel like we cultivate that here."
The lesson is bigger than acting and it always has been. That philosophy is part of what recently prompted the GFWC Progress Club to donate to ACT, recognizing that the rising cost of everyday life can keep some families from giving their children the chance to experience theater. The gift helps ensure finances don't become the deciding factor in whether a child discovers what waits behind the curtain.
It's also one reason the organization has built for the future in other ways, including establishing an endowment with the Community Foundation of Southern New Mexico, reflecting a community investment not just in productions, but in the continuation of the program itself.
That support makes sense when you spend a few minutes listening to the people who have lived it.
Executive Director Luis Alfonso Castro can certainly talk about productions. ACT now does six each year. Some are audition-only, while others are open through registration, guaranteeing every child who signs up a role and at least one speaking line. The organization offers theater and film classes, teaches technical theater, develops junior directors, introduces students to theater history and vocabulary, and even brings local schoolchildren to daytime performances at the Rio Grande Theatre.
But when asked what children really gain from the experience, his answer has almost nothing to do with performing.
"I think it gives them so many different skills," Castro said. "Sometimes you get kids who are super timid, and then by the end of the process they're like, 'Wow, look at that superstar on stage.' It gets them comfortable getting outside of their shell."
He talks about responsibility, accountability and learning to work as part of something larger than themselves, because a production only succeeds if everyone does their part. Younger children learn from teenagers. Older students discover what it means to mentor. Reading scripts becomes reading comprehension. Characters become lessons in literature and empathy. A rehearsal becomes an education that extends well beyond theater.
"This isn't like a community theater with kids in it," Castro said. "This is a program with all the pieces."
That distinction matters. The organization intentionally exposes children to every aspect of production, from costumes and props to lighting and backstage work, understanding that not every child who walks through the door dreams of standing in the spotlight. Some discover they love directing. Others gravitate toward design or filmmaking. Some simply become lifelong audience members.
Guitar believes that’s just as valuable. She knows because she has watched it happen again and again.
There are children who perform in one show and never return to the stage, she said, yet years later they're sitting in the audience applauding someone else.
"They're supporting from afar," she said. "It's not just about necessarily being in the show but just loving theater and the art form."
Board President Brooke Tou has watched a similar transformation from a different perspective.
Her daughter became involved first. Tou, who studied theater herself, volunteered backstage, eventually joined the board and now serves as its president. Along the way, she has watched children who arrive shy become confident, and others who may not always find acceptance elsewhere simply become another member of the cast.
"There have been a lot of times when there's one or two kids in the show that have an intellectual disability or some other kind of challenge," Tou said. "They're just welcomed as a part of the cast like anyone else."
She has watched the other children adapt without being asked, learning empathy not through a lesson plan but by sharing rehearsals, memorizing lines together and celebrating opening night.
"It's been really special to see," she said.
Some of ACT's success stories have gone on to New York workshops, won recognition for films they created or built careers in theater. Others have become teachers, professionals and parents who simply carry with them the confidence they first discovered on stage.
One of the organization's favorite stories begins with a quiet boy who followed an older sister into a production. Reserved at first, he gradually found his voice, became a junior director, aged out of the program and now serves as ACT's vice president.
It is difficult to measure that kind of return on investment. Maybe that's why ACT's story isn't really told in playbills. It's told in the people who keep coming back.
Guitar never forgot the little girl who threw her hands into the air and died dramatically in a long-forgotten play. She grew up, earned a doctorate in English literature, became a teacher and returned to the same organization that helped shape her.
Thirty-four seasons later, children are still walking through those same doors, some dreaming of Broadway, many with no idea where life will take them.
ACT welcomes them all the same.
Because the most important role they will ever play will not be the one they perform under the lights but will be the person they become after the curtain falls.
