Taking his act to Boston

Clark leaves North Shore

Burgess Clark, executive artistic director of the Boston Children's Theatre, speaks to his cast during a rehearsal. (DAVID KAMERMAN/GLOBE STAFF)

BOSTON - On this early-October afternoon, the Dow Jones average was down more than 700 points. Sitting in his basement office on Columbus Avenue in the South End, Burgess Clark smiled at the suggestion that it wasn't the best month to take the reins of a small, nonprofit arts group.

"It is always hard for the arts, whether the economy is good or it isn't," said Clark, a Beverly resident. "I will say that it's also been traditionally proven that people need the arts more in this kind of economy than ever."

On. Oct. 1, Clark took over as executive artistic director of the Boston Children's Theatre, the 58-year-old group devoted to teaching and sharing the joy of the stage experience with young people from the area. He started work just a few months after ending a four-year stint as director of education and children's programs at North Shore Music Theatre in Beverly. He's spent most of his career working with kids.

"It all harks back to the fact that when I was a kid, I had a very serious teacher in theater, who had the faith and understanding to take me seriously as an artist at age 14," Clark said. He went on to a professional career as an actor, writer, and director, but found it less compelling than working with young talent.

"One of the things I've been most grateful for in working with this age group is that you're there for that period of discovery in which you see a kid and they can't hardly open their mouth because they're so shy, and within a year or two years you see them taking the lead in a musical or in a play, and watch the transformation that happens with that kind of experience," he said. "So you kind of get to spend your career in the best part of a child's rearing, which is that discovery period."

The theater group has about 1,000 kids per season passing through, with 40 to 60 in BCT Academy classes. The board hopes Clark can help more people - both students and theatergoers - discover the group, increasing its programming and perhaps broadening its financial base. He's started right off by directing this season's first production, "The Sound of Music."

Clark follows Patricia Gleeson, who retired last season after 19 years. He has already made one change in this season's spring production, trading out a lesser-known play, "Sara Crewe," for "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day," a new musical he says has "an enormous following."

Clark is also an award-winning playwright and is currently working on a play about the Underground Railroad that might find its way to the group's stage in the future.

The childrens' theater has a roughly $300,000 annual budget, with tuitions, ticket sales, and board donations the major funding sources. Before he'd even begun work, Clark was pleasantly surprised to raise $47,000 from board members in a single meeting. But his long-term plan is less ad hoc: "There is no specific endowment for BCT, but we're going to work on that."

The stamp he wants to put on the theater group is consistency.

"BST has gone through a lot of transition in the last number of years," Clark said. "I think there will be a real consistency in quality of programming as well as the experience for both students and our audience. This is my fifth program that I've run like this around the country. I've always found that if you can create the best quality experience for both your students and your audience, you have an extremely loyal following."

Some of that he learned at North Shore before leaving in the wake of management changes. "Through his vision, Burgess took a static 10-year education program and breathed new life into it," Jon Kimbell, NSMT's artistic director emeritus, said in an e-mail. "With an entrepreneurial spirit, he expanded existing programs, created new programs that reached adults as well as young people, and brought our work in theater education into sharp focus."

Burgess "just stood way above almost everybody else. His enthusiasm was really infectious," said BCT board chairman Henry Lukas. "We've been around for almost 60 years, and we want to keep our activity going and keep our reputation going, and he really sold us on how he could do that. And he's already done it just since he's been working with us."

For tickets and information, go to bostonchildrenstheatre.org.