About Us

Enriching Our Youth…on and off the stage since 1980

Our Story

In 1980, members of the community theatre group Newport Player’s Guild realized there was a lack of performing arts for children and families in Newport, and formed Newport Children’s Theatre, originally with adult actors. The following year, NCT started the very successful Summer Theatre Workshop Program, forging a relationship with St. Michael’s Country Day School that lasted almost two decades.

Impressed with the creativity of the young actors, and seeing how popular the end of session performances were, NCT officially became a “youth theatre” and began holding open auditions for young actors aged 8 and over for productions in the spring and December. By 1992, up to 90 children auditioned for each show, and Newport County Teen Repertory (NCT Rep) was formed to give experiences teen actors the change to continue learning about theatre through a series of advanced workshops, touring performances to schools, libraries and community centers, and technical theater opportunities.

Artistic Director

Tara O'Hare

Tara has performed professionally nationwide on numerous equity stages, but it was during her time working and living in NYC that she discovered her true passion for teaching and directing while volunteering at Harlem’s Children Theatre. This volunteerism led to her 15 year-long career as Artistic Director for Newport Children’s Theatre (NCT) in Rhode Island. Over the years, she has directed and produced over 60 main stage productions, 50 intensive training workshops, and countless educational programs for nearly 3 generations of children. Her students have gone on to study theatre at NYU Tisch School of the ArtsEd, Bard College, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, ArtsED, Berklee College of Music, Pace Musical Theatre program, The New School, and her alma mater, Wagner College, where she received a degree in Theatre & Speech, to name a few.

Tara's Vision

[When] I went to college, I didn't have any training… and I felt completely lost and like I was five steps behind everybody else. So it was my goal that I was going to make sure that I provided a place where kids could really learn the ins and outs of what it really took to be an actor to do this professionally, whether you're in a little class or an older class; to not only gain the joy of what it is to be an actor/performer, but to also understand the work involved and that there's a goal, there’s a collective thing that we're doing together to make this end product. And that our end product wasn't going to be kids just standing on stage delivering lines so that their parents could see them in a costume, [but] that they actually got through the program and they learned several lessons that were going to be useful in their lives, rather than just, ‘oh, look how cute, they're such cute little kids.’ I reinstitute that through all of what I do with the kids, and I just say, ‘when I look at you, you're not kids to me, you're actors, this is how we behave in the space.’ I don't want us to look like the cookie cutter children's theater program. I try to steer away from being too kiddish so that I want that image to kind of really represent [what is] so vital to the mission and so much more than what other places are doing.

And I think it's why the older kids they come back, why they stick with it, why they feel so connected to to me and to each other is that they really understand when they're there. It's deep. They're digging into their emotions, into really listening and respecting another person, and developing a true understanding of why theater is something that is a part of our human experience, that they they're going to benefit the world by doing.”