Peter Meineck participated in theater as a boy in school in England, but he never thought of going into it as a career when he grew up. In fact, as a teenager, Meineck was expelled from school and ended up entering the Royal Marines. He became an officer but eventually went back to school and fell in love with Greek drama. Now, Meineck is artistic director for Aquila Theatre Company, one of the most successful and respected classical theater troupes in America and England.

But Meineck will be the first to tell you that the seed for his career was planted in a school-related theater event from when he was a boy. So at least part of his mission as a director is to create the same type of moments in the lives of young people today.

“I wanted nothing to do with theater and went into the military, but those experiences I had as a kid in the theater never went away,” he said, from his office in Manhattan. “I think about them all the time. Kids who are 13 are hard to win but once you have them, you have the most loyal fan.”

Aquila Theatre is one of several companies on the Maine Center for the Arts lineup this year to offer performances as well as outreach for school children in the community. When Aquila shows up later this month to present “The Importance of Being Earnest,” it will also offer acting workshops for children at Old Town High School. Planning is also underway for a community outreach program with the Ethos Percussion Group, which will perform April 26 at the MCA.

Perhaps the most ambitious outreach of the season will be presented by Ailey II, the touring arm of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. In addition to a performance at the MCA on March 19, the company will travel to the University of Maine at Presque Isle for a performance and workshops with local school children there.

The MCA, which has funded the Ailey outreach, will send its technical and box office staff to assist with the event.

“This is an exciting project because we’re bringing a performance to a satellite university and to the community of Presque Isle,” said Adele Adkins, assistant director at MCA. “We don’t get anything out of this financially but it helps us fulfill our mission to bring the best we can in the arts to the state. It’s spreading the gospel to a more remote area.”

Outreach is a mutually beneficial arrangement, say the artistic directors. For Meineck, it bolsters what he says is a responsibility of artists to educate. But it also creates new audiences, gives a venue for open dialogue between artists and their audiences, and allows performers to stretch themselves in new directions.

Meineck learned this firsthand when the group toured the country – and not just big cities but remote areas – with a politically passionate and challenging production of “Julius Caesar.”

“When we did that show, people got angry all over America in the political issues we brought up,” said Meineck, who founded Aquila in 1991. “You don’t seek to answer those questions. You seek to bring them up. The arts can take people out of the spin. The arts make people think and take them out of the media frenzy.”

Meinick saw that same phenomenon in the group’s home performance space in New York City after the events of Sept. 11, 2001. Only a few days after, Aquila, whose performing space is not far from Lower Manhattan, continued a production of “Much Ado About Nothing,” and found a new form of outreach right in its own backyard. It provided local catharsis.

“We realized this old play had survived far worse: pestilence, plagues, the holocaust,” said Meineck. “People came and they laughed – even as there were sirens outside. The arts forced us to get out of our bunker mentality and come together to share experiences.”

Sylvia Waters, artistic director with Ailey II, said arts outreach carries with it a powerful potential for the future – and not only in developing new audiences.

“I gives students more options,” said Waters. “It provokes them to ask questions about themselves. What do I do that is artistic? This is a field that employs many, many people and not just as dancers. There are options in the world of theater. Theater is employable for actors, singers, dancers, technicians, designers. The outreach helps to open up all these avenues.”

Waters is also a product of arts education and outreach. She learned about modern dance in junior high. The interest that was sparked there led her to The Juilliard School and eventually to joining the Ailey dance troupe in 1968. She has been artistic director of Ailey II since its inception 25 years ago.

Through the years, she has watched funding and commitment to arts education wane, and the importance of outreach on the part of arts companies grow stronger.

“We are educating. We’re entertaining. And we are provoking to some extent,” said Waters. “We try to show kids the kind of magic there is in theater. I want to have a conversation but I also want their eyes and their minds to feast on a viable art.”

Meineck holds a similar position: “We bring in a high-quality, innovative show that electrifies the community and allows them to see something of where we live. We are coming into their community and providing something their local community doesn’t have. It’s not necessarily better, just different. It’s a bit like a circus coming to town.”

Carrying the flag of arts education is a role not all performing arts companies take on. It’s grueling work to rally after a performance or for a next-day morning event with school children. But the level of dedication at Ailey II and Aquila is matched for good reason by the support organizers at the MCA offer.

“In a lot of cases, the children in Maine would never see professional live performances if it weren’t for companies like Alvin Ailey and Aquila,” said Adkins. If we don’t take it there, the kids wouldn’t see it and, when children are growing up, if they don’t see an Alvin Ailey or a hockey team or a beautiful painting, then they live in a nutshell. The do not see the possibilities of what their lives can hold for them. The performing arts is not for everybody, but everybody should have the opportunity to make that decision.”

For information about performances and workshops for Ailey II at 7 p.m. March 19; “The Importance of Being Earnest” by the Aquila Theatre Company at 7 p.m. March 26; and the Ethos Percussion Group at 8 p.m. April 26 at the Maine Center for the Arts in Orono, call 581-1755 or 800-MCA-TIXX.