From humble beginnings.

That’s a phrase that could be used for Cohen Ambrose or Flathead Valley Community College’s Theatre Arts program. In this case, the two are closely intertwined.

Ambrose, a Bigfork native and Flathead High School graduate, attended FVCC for a year a decade ago. Now he is directing a play at the University of Montana using four other students who also attended FVCC.

“Book of Days” will run March 11 to 14 at 7:30 p.m. and March 15 at 2 p.m. at the Masquer Theatre in Missoula.

Ambrose, now an adjunct faculty member and double master’s-degree student, said his time in Kalispell was well-used.

“We were just constantly doing plays,” he said. “It was a crash course in finding your way to do your own theater. It gave me a lot of ingenuity.”

Ambrose’s play, written by American playwright Lanford Wilson, is set in a small town in Missouri and at its most basic is a murder mystery. Ambrose hopes to use the character-driven, economically dialogued play to show off his actors’ talents.

When he was attending FVCC, instead of the black box theater with ample seating and lighting, Ambrose and his classmates set up plays in a classroom with movable walls.

The ceiling was barely nine feet high and space was at a premium.

Joe Legate, FVCC’s resident director, was around when Ambrose was attending and creating makeshift plays in a classroom. Although the facilities have improved, he and Theatre Arts Adviser Rich Haptonstall still get the most out of their students. It has paid off.

“They think our students walk on water down there” in Missoula, Legate said. “They come here, get a ton of stage experience and take care of their general education courses so they can focus on their major at a four-year school.”

Hugh Butterfield, a 2013 FVCC graduate and cast member in “Book of Days,” said his fellow former FVCC members laugh about their common connection.

“It’s definitely kind of an inside joke,” he said. “We’re the FVCC crew. It’s been really great and interesting to see all the graduates of the program working together.”

Former FVCC students Joshua Kelly, Greg Bortz and Nate Adkins also cast members in the production. Legate and Haptonstall have stories and jokes about each former student.

Stories such as Adkins spending 10 years bumming around at FVCC until Legate essentially had to shove him out the door to get his master’s degree, Ambrose being the softest-spoken genius they had ever met and Kelly’s “encyclopedic knowledge of Shakespeare” leave the two men in hysterics about their talented students.

That’s the benefit of a small program like FVCC, they say. Stage experience is more or less forced on theater arts students. With a program that fluctuates between 10 and 15 students, it’s a necessity.

“I was in every play they had when I was there,” Butterfield said of his time at the community college.

That means the Associates of Arts degree graduates get when they leave FVCC comes with a hefty resume of on-stage experience.

Upcoming productions at FVCC include “Opal,” a musical about an imaginative girl in a turn-of-the-century lumber camp in Oregon. The show will run April 17-19 and 24-26.

Following that show, Flathead Valley Community College will showcase its talented students in the One Acts, 10-minute plays directed by students. Those will run May 9 and 10.

“They are connected to the directing class,” Haptonstall said. “We get plays from all over the world. Students pick, cast and produce the play.”

Reporter Ryan Murray may be reached at 758-4436 or by email at rmurray@dailyinterlake.com.