At Home on Stage or Backstage
After Cavan Hendron, then 6 years old, saw “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie” at the Lexington Children’s Theatre, he told his grandmother, “I want to do something at that place.”
Ten years later, Cavan, a sophomore at Bryan Station High, has done a whole lot of “somethings” at LCT.
After he attended a LCT Playmakers Summer Program, Cavan was hooked.
Inspired by his elementary school music teacher, Andrea Marcum, and after attending more summer camps and plays, Cavan auditioned for LCT’s middle school acting troupe, Junior Company, as a sixth grader.
He wasn’t selected but a year later he earned a spot in the group, which meets weekly to study and practice acting, directing, writing and other theater arts.
It was in eighth grade, Cavan said, that “my LCT life started.” He auditioned for and earned a role in “Madeline’s Christmas,” performed at the Lexington Opera House in 2011.
The following spring he was cast as Jeff in “There’s a Boy in the Girls’ Bathroom.”
From then on, Cavan auditioned for every play with roles for students at LCT.
Not all of those auditions resulted in roles, but Cavan subscribes to the motto, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”
Trying again resulted in roles at LCT in “Wiley and the Hairy Man,” “Lily’s Purple Plastic Purse,” and his current role in “Lost and Foundling” at Bryan Station.
Even though Cavan was not cast in “Seussical The Musical,” the Summer Family Musical at LCT in 2012, he was invited to join the technical staff and served as part of the deck crew. He moved props and set pieces around the stage during performances.
“It was a really fun experience to learn what goes on backstage,” he said.
That led Cavan to take on the job of assistant stage manager for “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” in 2012.
“It was more challenging than deck crew,” he said.
“We had to feed lines to the actors during rehearsals and make it ‘snow’ on stage during performances.”
Since then he has served on the technical crew for several other plays at LCT.
“I’m made to feel like part of the family,” he said, “It’s a nice experience to have with all these amazing people.”
Said Martha Hendron, his grandmother: “The Children’s Theatre has been great with him. They have taught him and taken care of him. I really credit the people at LCT.”
Up next for Cavan? He will play a soldier in “Gossamer” at LCT in April.
And after that? “I want to act, pursue a career in theater and one day be on the Oscar stage.”
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