For decades, Laura Gallagher Byrne has been the face of youth theater on Nantucket. Across a lengthy career with Nantucket Public Schools and the Dreamland Theater, Gallagher Byrne has shaped a generation of young Nantucket actors, many of whom have gone on to become professionals in the field.

But by last year, Gallagher Byrne knew it was time for her next chapter. She wanted to do something no one on Nantucket had truly done before. Enter the Nantucket Stage Company, Gallagher Byrne’s own theater group. “I thought, I’m going to make a change. I’m going to make a difference for the [students],” she said. “I thought, I know so specifically how I want to do this, and in my mind, in my opinion, I know what will serve this community.”

Last April, under red and purple stage lights, a group of students with the Nantucket Stage Company performed the Broadway musical Hadestown. The show was a success, but what was perhaps most notable was that it happened at all. Over the next several months, actors, crewmembers and parents reiterated the same point: A year ago, this would not have been possible. “I don’t think we would ever have been able to do that,” Gamarley Smith, who played Orpheus in the show, said. “There’s no way.”

What sets the Nantucket Stage Company apart is its professionalism. In one way or another, every actor said the same thing: The Nantucket Stage Company takes youth theater seriously. Hadestown, an adaptation of the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, exemplifies this shift. A complex, challenging show known for its difficult vocal parts and mature themes, it is not designed for young children, and likely would have never been attempted by other local youth theater companies. If they had tried, they may have had to remove several of the key musical numbers that deal with overtly political and adult messages and perhaps compromise the strikingly tragic ending.

“They knew that they would be working extremely hard, long hours, but those kids want to do that,” said Jennie Cook, who is also a vice president of the Nantucket Stage Company board. “[The kids] didn’t even want to leave rehearsals. They were ready to put all their blood and sweat into this and make it amazing.”

Actors who performed in Hadestown described a unique level of commitment that permeated from the leads all the way down to the ensemble, referring to the process as “professional,” “intense,” “disciplined,” “serious” and “complex.” None of this, they said, would have been possible before the Nantucket Stage Company. "The whole experience was magical,” Olivia Gillies, who played Eurydice, said. “One of my favorite things, and one of the most important things to me when doing Hadestown, [was] realizing that by the end of that last hour of tech week, on that last day, that everybody had put forth every single inch of themselves into the show.”

Gallagher Byrne has also been taking her students to the Junior Theater Festival in Atlanta, a global gathering of young musical theater performers that includes a competitive element. Last year, the Nantucket Stage Company received the Excellence in Acting Award, and two Nantucket students, Tomas Young and Julia Nogueira, were named Junior Theater Festival All-Stars, an honor bestowed on a select group of outstanding student performers. Gallagher Byrne called this one of the highlights of the new stage company.

More than anything, the students who participate in Nantucket Stage Company productions share a strong sense of community, and many have made powerful, lasting friendships through their work. The Junior Theater Festival allows the actors to expand those connections to other students interested in theater from across the world.

“It’s so spectacular, I think, to be with so many like-minded people,” Ronan Murray, who played Hades in Hadestown, said. “Every single one of them is so friendly and so talkative. We sang with strangers, we danced with people we have never seen before and may never see again.”