A lot of college students may look back at adolescence as a period of no worries or responsibilities. Iowa State students might gladly trade in their Visa bills and car keys for a chance to go through elementary school again. But not all preteens revel in the life of leisure. An actress in the upcoming show Ramona Quimby, based on the hugely popular Beverly Cleary books, at Stephens Auditorium leads a busy life.

Katherine Emmer, who plays the part of Susan, has been taking classes at the Minneapolis-based Children’s Theatre Company, which is putting on Ramona Quimby, since she was seven years old. Now that she has hit the ripe old age of 12, she has embarked on her first tour, the privilege for which she had to fight pretty hard.

“I saw the audition in the newspaper, and I decided to go,” Emmer explained. “I had auditioned for tours before, but my Mom and Dad said, ‘You can audition, but you’re too young to tour.’ I made it to callbacks, and then to second callbacks, and I asked my parents again if they’d let me go on tour if I made it, and my mom said, ‘We’ll see.’ When I got in, I was so excited, I was freaking.”

Mom and Dad had a meeting with the director, and they gave Katherine their consent to hit the road. And yes, all of the travel does interfere with the sixth-grader’s life, but her teacher and fellow cast members try to make it as easy as possible.

“I have a double so I don’t go out for the full tour,” Emmer explained. “We switch off every two to three weeks. My teacher gives me assignments and I do them on the bus or in the hotel. It’s hard sometimes because some of the assignments I know my teacher wants me to do a certain way, and we don’t get the chance to talk about them. But there are so many people on the bus, there’s always someone there to answer my questions.”

Emmer was sorta apprehensive at first, despite being excited to tour, because there are only a few other young people her age in the cast. “At first, I was a little concerned because there are only three other kids,” she said. But that all changed when she met Katie, an 11-year-old whose family is also in the cast, and the two became fast buddies. “A new friendship came with it,” Emmer added.

This particular tour began in mid-October and will run until early March (whew!). And even though Emmer herself doesn’t act in every single show, she has still picked up some oh-so valuable information to put to use in everyday life from her travel.

“[Touring] has been a really good experience because you get to learn the ways of tour,” Emmer said. “I’ve learned to tip at restaurants, and that it’s really important to get lots of sleep on tour. And I’ve learned how to do laundry when I wouldn’t’ve learned at home even though my Mom would like me to, just by living on the road.”

By the way, while most kids from past generations devoured the Ramona books in grade school, Emmer fesses up to not being all that familiar with them. “Before the play, I hadn’t actually read them,” Emmer said. “For the audition, I started reading some of them. They had a TV series, so I learned about it; I know about Ramona and Beezus and everybody. And I’ve talked to kids in my class who’ve read them, and we have some of them in the school library.”

Ramona Quimby appears tonight at 7:30 p.m. at Stephens Auditorium; and at 10 a.m. Tuesday. Tickets for tonight’s show are $10 for adults and $6 for those 18 and under; tickets for the Tuesday show are $4 general admission. Tickets are available at the Iowa State Center Box Office and all Ticketmaster outlets.