BRUNSWICK — For eight years, the Midcoast Youth Theater existed as a roving troupe, but this December the theater will open its production of “Seussical” in a new home upstairs at 4 Pleasant St.

Henry Eichman, director of the theater, said the new space will resolve the group’s long- standing challenge of running a five-show season through a patchwork of rehearsal and performance space. The new home also will allow new opportunities for the musical theater group that Eichman says caters “to everyone from little kids to 65- year-old kids.”

“Stretching our season to five shows took a lot to be arranged to make that happen,” Eichman said during an October interview in the new theater space, which was built as a Methodist church and most recently contained Jesse’s Pool Hall. “We would need to book rehearsal space in two or three places for one show to get the times and space that we needed — and to find a performance hall where we could put on the show was hair-tearing.”

With the new building, all of that frustration goes away, Eichman said, and members can now focus on expanding the range of programs the theater offers.

“It allows us to venture into some of those places that our members would like to see us go, now that we have the space to do it,” Eichman said.

Most of the building’s interior space has been retrofitted with rake seating, a floorlevel stage and a space for the pit band in space that was originally built to serve as a choir loft.

Michele Joyce, whose fourperson family each played roles in last year’s production of “Jesus Christ Superstar,” said that having a consistent rehearsal space and sense of permanence for the theater “makes a huge difference.”

Eichman said the theater group agreed to a three-year lease with the Brunswick Downtown Development Group for the same price that the group paid in the past for five weeks of rehearsal space and one weekend at a performance venue.

“It’s just amazing to have a home (for the theater),” Joyce said.

Community support

Through the years, Eichman said the theater group survived on support from local businesses, dedicated donors, ticket sales and fees for participants in the company.

As the theater expands, Eichman said he hopes to broaden the base of support as well.

“We really want to try and hold our ticket prices where they were and have always been, so we’re really looking to expand that community support base and we’re looking at grant opportunities,” Eichman said.

Eichman also said that the theater provides financial support to participants in need.

“ We have never turned a kid away for financial reasons and wouldn’t,” Eichman said.

Fostering a closer relationship with the community will be key to the success of the new venture Eichman said is distinguished in Brunswick for a focus on musical theater.

Personal impact

Eichman said he first became involved with musical theater in Bath, after a 1997 production of “ Jesus Christ Superstar” at the Chocolate Church reignited the theater bug for his family and prompted the formation of the Merrymeeting Community Players.

“My granddaughter, when she was 5, wanted to do musical theater and there was no place,” Eichman said.

The Merrymeeting Community Players is now defunct, Eichman said, but its purpose lives on in the Midcoast Youth Theater.

“ Even though we still do family programs, our focus is truly kids,” Eichman said.

For those children, Eichman said it is “phenomenal what theater can do.”

The ability and confidence to speak or sing in front of a crowd is one benefit, Eichman said, but he said collaborating on stage productions also provides rare forms of social exploration.

“It teaches a lot about relationships and working through problems — all of those things that we really need to know in life are present in theater and are examined when putting a show together,” Eichman said. “In life, we experience things that happen to us, but we rarely sit back and ask, ‘Why does that happen?’”

¦ THE MIDCOAST YOUTH THEATER will stage six productions of “Seussical” over two weekends, debuting on Dec. 9 at 7 p.m.

Tickets for those shows can be purchased online at brownpapertickets.com/event/205302. For more information, visit the theater’s website at youth-theater.org.