George Roland; arts advocate nurtured actors in children's theater; at 81

“George gave his heart and tremendous guidance to the kids of Boston Children’s Theater; I was one of them,’’ said Tony-award winning director Julie Taymor, who created the musical version of “The Lion King.’’

Mr. Roland of Wakefield, who was executive and artistic director of Boston Children’s Theatre for 33 years, died Sunday at Massachusetts General Hospital of complications of kidney failure. He was 81.

Taymor was 9 when she first began performing at Boston Children’s Theatre in the 1960s when Mr. Roland shifted from his acting career to directing and building audiences for the theater through appearances on local children’s television shows.

“There wouldn’t be a Boston Children’s Theatre today without George Roland,’’ said the theater’s executive artistic director, Burgess Clark. “He became executive director in 1959 and made BCT a household name.’’

Working with the theater’s founding director, Adele Thane, Mr. Roland was a gentle, self-effacing director who had a talent for nurturing performers and breathing magic into well-worn children’s stories.

He lived for the moment the curtain went up and children in the audience would gasp at the set design, friends said.

“He understood how to get more out of each individual better than anyone I’ve met in my entire life,’’ said Steve Liss, a photojournalist who performed with Boston Children’s Theatre as a boy and took his first photos there with Mr. Roland’s encouragement. More than 40 of Liss’s photos have appeared on the cover of Time magazine.

Liss said he was a troubled adolescent when Mr. Roland took him under his wing.

“George was the kind of guy, honest to God, who believed in people when no one else did and when there wasn’t any reason to,’’ said Liss, who recalled playing Tom Sawyer in 1967 with then 15-year-old Taymor as Aunt Polly.

Born George Gigilio in 1928 in the North End, Mr. Roland was the youngest of five children. His father was a poet and photographer who shared his love of the arts with his children.

As a boy, Mr. Roland sneaked into the opera, he told his family. He attended the Leland Powers School of Radio and Theater and acted with the Boston Tributary Theater, where he met his future wife, Mary. They were married 60 years and had four children.

He also performed with St. Michael’s Playhouse in Vermont, Cambridge Summer Theater, and Boston Summer Theater. He appeared in shows with Karl Malden, Buddy Ebsen, comedian Bert Lahr, and Kim Hunter, according to his family.

As a young actor and director, he helped pay the bills by betting at the dog track, he told friends.

“My dad had joie de vivre,’’ said his daughter Dara Weller of Lander, Wyo. “To me, my dad was the Ghost of Christmas Present in Charles Dickens - the laughter, the spontaneity, the love of life.’’

She recalled many visits as a child to her father’s office when the Boston Children’s Theatre was in an old Victorian house on Commonwealth Avenue.

“We felt like we shared my dad with hundreds of hundreds of kids, and that’s OK,’’ said Weller, who teaches programs for gifted children on a Northern Arapaho reservation in Wyoming. “He played father to a lot of people that way.’’

Keith Brown, a Watertown architect and a former Boston Children’s Theatre performer, said Mr. Roland taught through his own approach to life. “He taught by who he was,’’ he said.

Brown recalled productions out of the company’s traveling Stagemobile in the early 1960s.

“It was a human atmosphere,’’ Brown said. “One of things he taught was there’s a job, you do it, and you also have fun.’’

Stephen Weagle of Dennis, who designs sets, met Mr. Roland when he was 7. He learned set-design at Boston Children’s Theatre and relished hearing Mr. Roland say, “Stevie can do it.’’

“He was more than a mentor or father figure; he was one of the best friends I’ve ever had,’’ Weagle said.

“There was a lack of neurosis about him. No ego, but, man, did he get the job done.’’

In addition to his wife and daughter, Mr. Roland leaves three sons, George of Melrose, Christopher of Upton, and Jonathan of Belmont; and five grandchildren.

Funeral services will be held at 10 a.m. today at Most Blessed Sacrament Parish in Wakefield. Burial will be in St. Patrick Cemetery in Stoneham.