While most other theaters might view the loss of their main performance space as a setback of major proportions, Karen McElvain, the Founder and Producing Artistic Director of Open Road Theatre in South Hamilton, saw it as an opportunity. For the last several years, Open Road performed at Beverly's Memorial Building, a 900-seat proscenium auditorium space. The town now leases the space to BevCam, the local cable access station, leaving Open Road without a performance space for their 2010-11 season.

"What could I do?" asks McElvain, who has an MA degree in Theatre Education from Emerson College and is a certified teacher of Performing Arts for grades K-12. "I went to Salem State University and spoke with Bill Cunningham, head of the theatre department."

McElvain had wanted to hire Salem State design students for a long while, yet their heavy course load and transportation challenges to Beverly’s Memorial Building made it difficult for them to leave campus. When ORT began looking for a new venue, she asked Cunningham if ORT could produce Snow White on their stage in order to facilitate hiring Salem State design students who could walk to the job site. She feels that the theater department at Salem State shares the same core values of community-building and mentorship. "It's about empowering individuals to create and learn theater art as an ensemble. We're always looking for a collaboration through a multi-tiered mentorship. That's at the heart of what we do."

Now in its eighth year, Open Road Theatre produces three literature-based shows a year with kids from 5 to 18 years old. "There are tremendous benefits for kids of all ages to be involved in an Open Road production, just from the experience of working with such a wide age range," explains McElvain. "ORT is committed to empowering students to trust their creative impulses as they work together to achieve excellence in an ORT performance theatre workshop."

In addition to having multi-age casts, Open Road also seeks out and hires college students (from Emerson, Salem State, and elsewhere) and theater professionals from the Boston area. Much of the technical work in the company is done by high school students working in conjunction with the design professionals Open Road hires. Each experience offers an opportunity for mentoring, networking, and information-sharing. That's the kind of collaboration McElvain wants for Open Road and what she has been able to provide for the actors, families, students, and professionals who work with the company. In fact, ORT has hired many Emerson College design students over the last five years. A few of these Emerson students are now professional staff members of ORT.

"I like the idea of connecting to a university setting to do our work because I see that it benefits everybody," McElvain explains. "It benefits the college students to work at a professional company for internship credit and to put on their professional resume. They get to work with professionals who they can talk to and learn the trade from. The actors get to see professionals do their work and older students training to be professionals." Open Road's commitment to high professional standards enables their production team members to "go into any theater situation at another theater and know exactly what to do and what is expected of them."

In addition, says McElvain, "A lot of the professionals and college kids were in children's theaters themselves and love working with us. It takes them back to why they got into theater in the first place. It feeds and refreshes their theater-artistic souls."

So, this January, Open Road will be performing Snow White at Salem State, with a staff built from Salem State students, theater professionals, and high school and middle school tech interns. Their spring production of The Odyssey will be produced at a North Shore or Boston area college to maintain and build upon their commitment to mentorship by hiring college theatre design students to work side-by-side with theatre professionals on the production and artistic staff.

Everyone is invited to come see: ORT’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves on January 21st and 22nd at 7 PM, and January 23rd at 3 PM at Salem State University’s Main Stage, 352 Lafayette Street in Salem.