PicksInSix Q & A: Mrs. Doubtfire's Craig Allen Smith and Ava Rose Doty
Mrs. Doubtfire's Craig Allen Smith and Ava Rose Doty
PicksInSix® Q & A | Ed Tracy
When “Mrs. Doubtfire” sweeps into the Morris Performing Arts Center in South Bend for four shows March 13-15, Craig Allen Smith will be heading up a company that has been on the touring circuit for well over seven months. Smith, who lives in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, leads the company in his first national in the titular role made famous in the film by Robin Williams and on Broadway by Rob McClure. Smith freely admits that those are large shoes to fill but has approached the role from a fresh perspective all his own developed with director Stephen Edlund.
When we met on a recent Zoom call, we were joined by a mighty mite named Ava Rose Doty, who hails from Downers Grove, Illinois, and shares the role of Natalie Hillard in the show. Brimming with energy for the early morning chat, Ava, whose regional credits include Tiny Tim in “A Christmas Carol” and Young Tommy in The Who’s “Tommy,” both at Goodman Theatre, is indeed one of the most charming young performers you will ever meet and a font of information about her own first road tour experience.
Our conversation was a unique opportunity to explore a generational perspective of the tour from two performers who get along as well off stage as on.
The following conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
E Tracy: What was it like the first day you did the show and then knowing that you have to do another show tomorrow in another city?
CA Smith: It was definitely a learning curve in terms of trying to figure out how to pack for your life on tour in terms of making sure you have all the things you need, and then realizing I didn't need half of the things that I packed! Being on the bus for like six hours, then getting into the theater, having to do soundcheck, and then an hour later to just be on and do the show. That was a new thing for me.
AR Doty: It's my first tour too. We were in New York City, and then we went to Elmira, New York to do tech week, and then we went to Boston to do opening night. And when we were moving to those three cities—we were in New York City for a month—it was fun to go explore. When we were traveling to Elmira the tour hadn't really started yet. We were moving a lot after opening night. City to city to city. Those one-nighters are rough.
ET: Was that your first trip to New York, Ava?
ARD: I had been to New York for a lot for auditions, callbacks and seeing shows, but this was my first time in New York for rehearsals for a tour.
ET: And you splitting the role?
ARD: Yes. Our show is double cast, so every other show a different kid goes on. The other girl is named Vivian (Atencio). We have four kids. We all do school, hotel, bus, airplane, theater and we have a tutor on tour and do online school programs.
ET: Craig, this is an ambitious role. You have not only 30 plus costume changes, but you have quite a legacy to live up to. How did you approach putting Mrs. Doubtfire together?
CAS: Well, when I first met (director) Steve Edlund, we had a Doubtfire Bootcamp week. I came in along with Chaz, my understudy, and we had a week-long, eight-hour-a-day work session with the production team, the music director, choreographer, and Steve. We worked through the show from top to bottom. Rob (McClure) had done this on Broadway and again on the first national tour. I purposely didn't watch (his performance on video) because I am such a sponge. I wanted to work with Steve and be a clean slate.
I know the movie very well, like everybody, and we wanted to pay tribute to Robin and his legacy. A lot of the stuff Steve and I worked together might still be what Rob did. I don't know. I still don't know to this day if we're doing the same kind of bits and stuff. It was a great working experience with Steve to put together the story and to be able to create both of those characters, not only Daniel, but also Mrs. Doubtfire. The respect that Steve has for both characters, especially Mrs. Doubtfire is really great… his love for the characters is just so infectious that the weight of “I'm playing Mrs. Doubtfire!” was almost lifted off of me because we're just going to work, the two of us together, and make this what it is.
ET: It is one of those all-consuming roles. You are on stage all the time. If you are not on stage, you are changing to go on stage.
CAS: And if something goes wrong you literally can't think about anything. You have to constantly stay in the moment for each scene because the minute you start thinking, “Oh, I screwed that up!” there's five other moments that have just passed that are getting missed because you're thinking about something else.
ARD: Yeah. When stuff happens, you just improv.
CAS: Just improv. We keep going. The show must go on.
ET: What is the biggest thrill for you, Ava? What part of the show do you like more than any other?
ARD: I really like doing ‘What the Hell’ the song that all the kids sing at the beginning when they first have Mrs. Doubtfire as their nanny. That one is always really fun to sing with all the kids. I also like the opening because there's so much stuff happening.
CAS: That opening number moves a lot. We have a lot of different pieces that have to come together to make that opening number work.
ET: Have you been dancing all your life?
ARD: When I'm home, I take dance lessons and I started taking them when I was littler. My sister does ballet now and I take jazz contemporaries with theater, hip hop, that type of stuff.
CAS: I was married to a dance instructor and then we split.
ET: Craig, there is additional background research you've already completed for this role.
CAS: Right.
ET: All of the things that are happening in the show, the longing for a family and acceptance pieces, they are all interwoven… and being an out-of-work actor probably is something just about every actor knows about.
CAS: Right? Yeah. Their original child wrangler who was helping in New York City came up to me one day and he said “Do you feel like everything in your life has led up to this moment in this role?” And, honestly, I never thought about that, but thinking about it now, yes, literally everything in my life. I'm a divorced dad with two kids from a previous marriage. At one point I'm throwing footballs… I’m playing with a loop machine on stage, and I used to make music in college with a four track! Any actor would be like you're going to throw football, you're going to record this stuff. I was not afraid of anything except for the quick changes because that was a timing thing. You have to get these changes in under 30 seconds. I've never done quick changes this fast in my life, but, fortunately, I have a team that helps me.
ET: I think as we get older—and we're a generation apart—we realize that almost everything you take on is the product of everything that has come before. We only just get better, hopefully. You get a little bit more used to it. I think Ava's going to find that out probably at the end of this tour when she starts to do the next tour.
ARD: Right, right.
ET: It is quite a thing to be of a certain age and be on tour. There are a lot of things that you are accomplishing that kids your age never have an opportunity to do. So that's really exciting.
CAS: It is very impressive. Not only do they have to do schoolwork, but then they have to be on every night to do the show. And even if they are not in the show, they are backstage in case something, God forbid, happens and they have to go on.
ARD: Knock on wood!
ET: Ava, do you have 30 costume changes too?
ARD: No, I only have one every scene and they are not that quick for me. Not as quick as Craig's. The only quick one is when we go from the nightmare sequence ‘Playing with Fire’ to ‘La Rosa.’
ET: Do you have fun every night, Ava? Do you get nervous before you go out or are you cool?
ARD: I have been doing this for seven months. I feel like I've gotten more used to my character and I can start adding more things and taking away.
CAS: And when you keep doing it for seven months, you're finding new ways to keep things fresh.
ET: I want to tell you that when I was your age, I was making choices between peanut butter or peanut butter and jelly.
CAS: Honestly. Same.
ET: So, Craig, how many people are on this changing team?
CAS: I have two dressers. One—they call her the ‘Star Dresser’—is Nicole, who is in charge of all of my costumes. And then I have a wig and the mask dresser. Her name is Emily and she helps me get in and out of the wig and mask for each change. And then, for each venue we go to, we acquire one local dresser who will help like zip-up and put shoes on. It's a well-oiled machine. We got it down.
ET: That mask is really an innovative piece of this puzzle. Not a part of regular musical theater.
CAS: No. And I was wondering because I never acted with any sort of prosthetics. I didn't know how it was going to feel and if I was going to be able to communicate the story well enough with this thing on my face. But it really does feel like a second skin. The way that they have crafted it, a nose piece with an opening for the mouth and there is a strap so you have access to my eyes and my mouth and everything. It is pretty impressive the way they came up with this design.
ET: Do you wear a mask, Ava?
ARD: No, I don't. I have hair clips if that counts!
ET: A national tour is a big deal for any actor at any level.
CAS: We have been going for seven months now. I broke my toe in December literally two weeks before Christmas. They sent me home. I kept going through the rest of the acts and because of having to get in and out of high heels, they decided that I just go home and heal. So, my understudy is a champion, went on and did four weeks up until the Christmas break so I had time to heal. We had a week-long sit down in Jacksonville and we got to go to Disney World for a day. We look forward to the week-long sit downs. You have to plan out things to look forward to down the road.
ET: Ava, do you look for a certain thing when you get to a city? The best place to eat, a museum or Disneyland?
ARD: If we are in a city long enough and we have a day off, or a day with only one show where we have time, we try to look for fun things for the kids to do. If there is a pool there or we might go bowling or Disney, museums, the aquarium and we went on a ghost tour once. The kids like to collect stickers from each city or something to remember the city or find a little souvenir to bring back to their family.
ET: Do the community members along the way reach out to the cast and include them in some local activities?
ARD: One time we did a canned food drive. We have lots of interviews. One time they cooked us all a meal.
DAS: In Jacksonville, I got to go as Mrs. Doubtfire to a lot of local businesses. There was a pie shop, funny enough, so we pretended to make a pie. There was a chocolate factory. I was dipping pretzels in chocolate. It was cool to explore these different communities.
ET: This is a really unique character, Craig. You get to play both sides of your life. You're an actor, but also you are playing this person on stage who is creating a new reality. What is the audience reaction to what you are doing on stage, the separation of these two characters? What is the most satisfying part of that for you?
DAS: The show moves so fast that I really don't have time to reflect on anything. I love getting the audience to laugh. That's my ultimate high. Making sure I hit each of those moments and get their response is very rewarding for me. I know Steve loves to come and watch when he can. There have been a number of moments, he says, where he absolutely thinks it is the most amazing reaction. One scene I'm tricking my ex-wife, doing all these different voices and she's getting annoyed because she's looking for a babysitter and I'm pretending to be all these terrible babysitters. And then finally, I drop the Mrs. Doubtfire voice. When I first come out after we do a number where I'm trying on all these different wigs and trying to figure out what Mrs. Doubtfire is going to look like. It's called ‘Make Me a Woman.’ The whole ensemble is dancing crazy.
And when the drop comes up, the front door opens, there's Mrs. Doubtfire. Our music director said at one point there was little girl behind him. She turned to her mom and whispered, “There she is.”
PHOTO|Shelby DuPont
Broadway in South Bend
presents
Mrs. Doubtfire
Morris Performing Arts Center
211 N. Michigan Street,
South Bend, Indiana
March 13-15, 2026
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