Child Actors Who Made Quite an Entrance

Max Talisman And Mollie Clement Have Talent, Poise -- And High Hopes

Epiphanies come early in the lives of the stage-struck. When Max Talisman was 3, he traveled through a blizzard to see "Cats" at Washington's National Theatre. One exposure to Rum Tum Tugger and Grizabella the Glamour Cat and his fate was sealed.

"I fell in love with the excitement, the happy faces of the dancers," he says. "I wanted to be part of that."

The gotta-do-it thunderbolt also zapped Mollie Clement at 3. Her mother, Laura, took her to a puppet show, and instead of dissolving in giggles, the little girl burst into tears. Not out of fear -- out of frustration.

"I was upset," Mollie says.

"She wanted to be holding a puppet," her mother explains.

The dreams of Max, now 13 and a Bethesda seventh-grader, and Mollie, a Fairfax sixth-grader who is about to turn 11, were kindled as orchestras swelled and unseen hands wove their magic in the dark.

Unlike most kids, though, Max and Mollie moved out of the theater shadows and into the follow spot. And not just in school plays. Both have accomplished what many drama-conservatory graduates twice their ages are pining for: paying gigs as actors. Max recently finished a well-received turn as one of the leads in Studio Theatre's production of the vocally demanding musical "Caroline, or Change." Mollie completed an equally formidable job of pretending, playing the pint-size boy-hero in Imagination Stage's sweet version of "Seussical," a musical based on the works of Theodor "Dr. Seuss" Geisel.

It's one thing to be an aspiring child actor in New York or Los Angeles, where the showbiz urge is a genetic imperative. But can a kid with professional-stage fever find a reliable cure here? Washington has a strong theater scene and a lot of training programs for young actors, but it is not a particularly rich environment for children with the bug. Agents, who can be useful in helping find work for the youngest performers, have not figured prominently in the theater universe here. And the opportunities for work in such naturally child actor-hungry spheres as film and TV are practically nil.

As Joy Zinoman, Studio's artistic director, puts it: "There's no truly good way to cast children in Washington. It's about luck, obviously, as all casting is to some extent, and about really keeping your ears open. And then you've got to see many, many, many, to pick a few."

Max's parents, Alisa and Jon Talisman, and Mollie's, Laura and Richard Clement, watch with pride as their ambitious children find validation in an adult world of rehearsals, applause and reviews. Professionals who have worked with them speak admiringly of Max and Mollie's maturity and ability to apply themselves.

"She's a beautiful kid, but she's more than that," Kathryn Chase Bryer, associate artistic director of Imagination Stage and director of "Seussical," says of Mollie. Adds Kathi Gollwitzer, a longtime acting teacher and artistic director of Firebelly Productions, a theater company in Arlington, "There is nothing about the craft she doesn't understand."

The effusive words come equally easily about Max. "The thing about him is that he's such a smart, passionate, crafty performer," says Greg Ganakas, director of "Caroline." His voice teacher, John Marlowe, says his vocal quality is unusually supple. "I think it is very rare for somebody his age to have as big and well focused a voice as he has."