Their computer was on the blink or their Internet connection was down at their Corte De Rosa home; they weren't sure which and it didn't matter. What they did know was that they couldn't view the website where the casting for The Adventures of Tom Sawyer was being posted

"We had to run next door to the neighbor's house to see it," says Denise Bajtos.

When they did see it, it was more than Denise's 11-year-old son, Kyle, had expected.

"I looked and I saw 'Kyle Bajtos' and then I looked at the part and saw 'Tom Sawyer' and then I was like 'yeahhh', " Kyle says, demonstrating his grinning expression that day. "I thought I was going to get a smaller part."

He had played smaller roles in CMT productions of Guys and Dolls and Starmites, so the thought of landing the lead role never entered the mind of the St. Francis Cabrini sixth-grader.

Just before a recent mid-week rehearsal, Kyle and his mother stood outside CMT's rehearsal hall as other cast members arrived. A girl's voice from behind him called out, "Kyle! Kyle!"

The voice belonged to Madi Tindall, a blonde who ran up to him and gave him a hug. The 13-year-old Madi is Kyle's "Aunt Polly" in the production. She is one of the many friends he has made through the play, his mother says.

Inside, Kyle and Madi went through blocking and rehearsing their songs and lines under the direction of Josh Miyaji, a longtime member of the theater group.

With an older brother and two sisters, Kyle is the first member of his immediate family to show an interest in theater, but he does have a cousin who has been active in theater and has been offering Kyle advice.

"Basically, she said that if you screw up it doesn't matter, it's not like it's Broadway," Kyle says.

But he's getting a lot of practice during the two-, four-, and occasional seven-hour rehearsals of the musical based on the classic Mark Twain novel.

Always singing around the house, and occasionally getting extra loud in the shower, Denise says, Kyle will get to do a lot of singing as Tom Sawyer performing eight songs during each of the five shows in which his cast will perform.

CMT has two casts performing separate sets of dates or times for each production with a total of nine show times.

'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer' will be performed April 28 through May 1 at the Montgomery Theater located at 271 S. Market St., San Jose. Tickets can be purchased through CMT's website at www.cmtsj.org.