Local Knowledge: The Little Red Truck
The Missoula Children’s Theatre through the filmmakers’ lens
Jim Caron and Don Collins in 1970 when they decided to drop anchor on their wanderings and set up a theatre company in Missoula.
photos courtesy Tree and Sky Media Arts, Missoula Children‘s Theatre
The Little Red Truck filmmakers Pam Voth and Rob Whitehair with their dog, Satchmo.
photos courtesy Tree and Sky Media Arts, Missoula Children‘s Theatre
The little red trucks travel from town to town bringing the magic of Missoula Children‘s Theatre to 1,200 communities each year.
photos courtesy Tree and Sky Media Arts, Missoula Children‘s Theatre
Everyone’s favorite rooster gets into makeup. photos courtesy Tree and Sky Media Arts, Missoula Children‘s Theatre
In Somerton, Ariz., Jose plays the part of Bobby Jo and gets
a big laugh every time he purposely sings off key. photo courtesy Tree and Sky Media Arts
Students in St. Joseph perform the barnyard symphony. photo courtesy Tree and Sky Media Arts
A young cast member in Hollywood auditions for a role in Little Mermaid. photo courtesy Tree and Sky Media Arts
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THE GREEN, BLOCKY SCHOOL BUILDING LOOKS COLD AND UNIMAGINATIVE AS IT SITS ATOP A HILL OVERLOOKING A ROUGH GRAVEL PARKING LOT FILLED WITH NEARLY AS MANY FOUR-WHEELERS AS PICKUP TRUCKS.
Below the school is the tiny Arctic town of Rankin Inlet, Nunavut Territory, Canada. The town sits on the tundra on the northwestern shore of Hudson Bay. It is desolate, cold and gray.
Inside, the school’s gymnasium is crawling with young, anxious thespians. They have come to audition for a part in a Missoula Children’s Theatre production of Robin Hood and their story is part of a newly released documentary from Montana filmmakers: The Little Red Truck.
The gym’s walls bounce the noise, chatter and chaos around like basketballs. Kids are kids anywhere — you put a couple hundred of them in a big room and they’ll fill it with laughter, yelling, pushing, tugging, wrestling and an occasional tear.
The young theatre tour directors shout and plead for quiet. They have come from Missoula with a simple mission: Take a room full of kids, most of whom have no acting experience, and create a play in five days.
But this relatively straightforward goal is the beating heart of the Missoula Children’s Theatre. It is the reason why little red trucks depart from Missoula to all corners of the continent every year. It is why documentary filmmakers Rob Whitehair and Pam Voth embarked on an 18-month-long project to follow the trucks and explore the transformation that takes place in communities and in kids around the world when the red trucks roll into town.
“Most people in Missoula know that Missoula Children’s Theatre is a community theatre, but they don’t really know about all the little red trucks,” Whitehair said.
He and his wife, Voth, were like everyone else.
  
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