Bella Myers helps Cape Region kids become stars

Wrangling 60-plus children and teaching them how to produce a stage show in just four days seems like a daunting task, but for Bella Myers, Milton Theatre’s education director, it's a task she eagerly takes on. 

Most recently, Myers led kids at the theater’s summer camp production of “Newsies Jr.” The campers showed up to the theater July 14, when they auditioned and were cast. They then got a crash course in rehearsing the show before doing the full production July 18. The theater summer camps are extremely popular; for “Newsies Jr.,” there were so many kids, they could all barely fit on stage. Myers led the kids through a production of “Madagascar Jr.” July 28, for the final summer camp production of the year, which was sold out. 

“What I love so much about it is getting to be there for them as they get to experience the things that were so important to me when I was their age,” she said. “To facilitate that growth and life experience. When you get into a theater class, it's not like a math class. Theater is so socially, emotionally dynamic that you have to make that connection with everybody around you. I get to know my kids really well, and it's like being in a room with a bunch of little mes. It’s an honor to be able to teach them and guide them through those exciting moments in their lives.”

Myers first started performing when she lived in Middletown at age 4. 

“My parents threw me into a bunch of things to see what stuck, as new parents do,” she said. “Voice lessons, theater and dance are what stuck.”

She moved to Sussex County when her father became a cardiologist at Beebe Healthcare. Myers took classes at Milton Theatre when she was 11 and started as a teaching assistant at the theater when she was 14. Three years ago, she was asked by the theater to direct the summer camp shows, and after graduating college, she was hired on a full-time basis.

“It’s the right kind of progression in my life to teach these programs that I know from the inside out,” Myers said. 

Among the initiatives she has taken on since becoming education director is bringing back student main-stage musicals, with a production of “High School Musical” in August, and in 2026, a trip to Walt Disney World for 20 students who will go and take part in an educational workshop. 

Becoming a teacher hadn’t really crossed Myers’ mind until the pandemic hit in 2020. She said because of the pandemic, there wasn’t any in-person auditioning, and her perspective on how she wanted to pursue a career in the arts changed. 

“I decided that maybe I didn’t need to be on stage in New York City, away from my five siblings and my parents and the home I love,” she said.

A graduate of Cape Henlopen High School, Myers started college at Coastal Carolina before transferring to McDaniel College in Westminster, Md. In college, she learned all aspects of behind-the-scenes work in theater, taking courses in costuming and set design, serving as a dramaturge, learning about directing and scene work, as well as performing.

“I wanted to be able to do all of the things,” Myers said. 

Her job involves overseeing all aspects of the theater’s growing education program. She attributes her ability to teach large groups of children to being highly organized; she color-codes her scripts for the summer camps, with the “Madagascar Jr.” production being green. Besides the summer camps, she also teaches workshops, clubs and productions, as well as helping with main-stage productions. Myers started in her role last June, but she has been directing the children’s camp performances for three years now. 

She said she was very much looking forward to the theater’s future expansion to have a larger education wing with extra studios and classrooms. Myers said seeing the kids grow as an ensemble can make her emotional, and the kids make sure to lean into it.

“When they see Ms. Bella with her hand on her heart by the booth, that means she’s crying. And it's their goal to make me cry now,” she said.