O.C. Youths to Get In On Child’s Play : Theater: They will take the spotlight when a Montana touring group presents ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’ in Costa Mesa on Saturday.

Newlyweds Deny and Christine Staggs like kids. Lots of kids. By summer, they’re planning on having, oh, about 1,700 of them.

The Staggses are among 10 two-member teams that Missoula (Mont.) Children’s Theatre sends on the road each year to schools across the country. At each stop, company members bring 50 or more youths into the MCT fold, featuring them in a professionally staged classic children’s play in a bid to build confidence among participants while providing quality family entertainment for the community. On Saturday at Orange Coast College’s Robert B. Moore Theatre, Orange County children ages 5 to 18 will take the spotlight in two performances of MCT’s musical “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.”

An MCT spokesman says that since 1973, the touring shows have served as a traveling lesson in social and communication skills for more than 150,000 children in the United States and abroad. According to Jim Caron, company co-founder and executive director, the program came about almost by accident.

“The first time we tried (using local children), it was purely utilitarian,” Caron said during a phone interview from MCT’s Front Street Theatre in Missoula. “We had a request for a production of ‘Snow White’ from Mile City, this little cowboy town on the other side of the state. We didn’t want to take the kids in our cast on the road in the middle of winter, so we hit on the idea of using local children.

“I was nervous that we wouldn’t be able to find seven kids to play the dwarfs. When we got there, 450 kids were waiting to audition. It made us realize that the small towns, especially, were starved for this.”

MCT has performed in places as large as Chicago and as small as Masinasin, Alberta, a tiny Canadian village where it took the entire 32-member population of the local school (including teachers and janitors) to round out the cast.

“The small towns really are the heart of our mission,” Caron explained. “We try to make the shows entertaining and humorous for preschoolers to adults, because in a lot of the places we go, they have so few performing-arts programs to choose from. We make sure we have something for everybody.”

Costa Mesa, of course, is a far cry from Mile City or Masinasin, but Caron promises that even urbanites will enjoy the MCT show.

According to tour director Terri Elander, when the 1991-92 tour ends next May, MCT’s 10 two-man teams will have enlisted more than 17,000 children across the United States and Canada; each pair will have racked up about 20,000 miles. The company has also toured parts of Singapore and Guam, and a German tour is in the works for next spring.

It’s a demanding job. Each team acts as its own stage crew and totes a complete set (made largely with PVC and canvas for portability), an array of size-adjustable costumes, makeup, lighting and sound equipment--all packed into a Toyota mini-truck.

“Snow White,” adapted by Caron with original music by MCT artists, is one of 10 children’s plays in this year’s repertoire. It’s a gentler take on the somewhat gory Brothers Grimm original, said Caron, but follows basically the same story of a beautiful young girl who escapes the wrath of a jealous queen and falls in with seven industrious dwarfs.

But unlike the original, the magic mirror in MCT’s version emphasizes inner beauty. Each character who gazes into this looking glass discovers his or her better, and often hidden, self, including the wicked Queen Bella, who undergoes a happy transformation at the end of the show.

The Staggses not only cast and direct each performance, they also appear in the show--Christine as Queen Bella, Deny as Witless Woodsman and the handsome prince. The combination of seasoned adults and amateur children in major roles required a certain amount of doctoring to the tale as well, Caron said.

When Prince Charming plants a chaste kiss on the sleeping Snow White’s forehead, the maid (who will be played in Costa Mesa by 11-year-old Ashley Thomas of Irvine) sits up and responds with a hearty “Yuk!”

Whether they are cast in major roles or as one of the show’s chorus of dancing trees, the children who appear in this weekend’s show walk away with the same prize, Christine Staggs said.

“They all get a great amount of confidence out of this,” she said. “Even having what you might consider a chorus role gives them moments on stage to feel secure in the spotlight. That can give the kind of confidence you can carry through life. Plus, it’s just a heck of a lot of fun to be in an environment where you can just let loose and have fun.”

The Missoula Children’s Theatre presents a musical adaptation of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” on Saturday at 2 and 4:30 p.m. at the Robert B. Moore Theatre, Orange Coast College, 2701 Fairview Road, Costa Mesa. Tickets: $4 to $6 in advance, $5 to $8 at the door. Information: (714) 432-5880.