How's your local community theater?

Cafe Society
1

I just ordered tickets to see *Spamalot *by the Port Tobacco Players in La Plata, MD. Not too long ago, we saw their performance of Tommy, and it was not bad. On the other hand, we also went to another local theater’s production of The Lion in Winter, and it was beyond mediocre. Many many years ago, a good friend of mine was in Fiddler on the Roof. The overall production was good, but my friend - not so much…

Over the years, I’ve seen everything from professional touring companies down to elementary school plays and I think my expectations are realistic. Some of the community productions have been really good, some really awful. I’m inclined to think that the skill of the director is one of the most important factors, but never having acted myself, that’s just a gut feeling.

I’m hoping the first production we saw there is indicative of the company as a whole, but the tickets for two were just $34 (yay, senior discount!!) so if it sucks, we’ll at least have a story worth $34! :smiley: Plus it’s a whole lot closer to home than DC or Baltimore, and parking is free!

So, how’s your community theater? Feel free to share tales of excellent or horrific performances.

2

It’s difficult to write objectively about our community theater, because I am pretty heavily involved in it. Over the past five or six years, I’ve performed in several plays and musicals, mainly in my city, but also in some neighboring towns that are maybe a half hour drive away. I played Patsy in Spamalot!, President Roosevelt in Annie, and one of the poker buddies in The Odd Couple, among other things. I also met my wife through the theater, so there’s that.

I think, with all modesty, that we’re generally pretty good. At the very least, we are relatively popular in the community. We have a 393-seat theater which often sells out, especially for the big musicals. We’ve won awards in regional theater competitions. Which is a big change: when I first started with the theater about six years ago, they were in pretty poor financial shape, and the building was falling apart. Over those six years, the theater has gotten much stronger, attendance has gone way up, and we’ve gotten grants that have helped repair a lot of the damage to the facility. Not that I’m taking credit for this change, mind you–it just happened to coincide with my time there. It was mostly hard work on the part of the Board and the Artistic Director.

You’re right that the director plays a huge role in the quality of the production, and it really can vary from show to show. I’ve been in shows that I’m tremendously proud of (Spamalot! was one), and I’ve been in shows that were, let’s say, not as good as they might have been. In community theater, you’re going to have very different levels of talent. One of the skills a good director has is to get the best performance possible out of everyone. Interestingly I kind of butted heads with the director of Spamalot! quite a lot, but it was worth it because he staged an excellent show. By contrast, directors who are uncertain, or who don’t take a strong enough role in guiding their casts, can produce some truly dire results. I’ve been in shows where the director was very hands-off, didn’t give us any feel for what he was after, didn’t control people who wanted to show off rather than contribute to the good of the play as a whole, and it’s an incredibly frustrating experience.

There’s an old saying, but it’s very true: If one or two performances are good, credit the actors. If all of the performances are good, credit the director.

Some community theaters can be very clique-ish. They’ll have a regular batch of people who always get the lead roles, always get to be the featured dancer, and so forth. Not that those people aren’t good, mind you, but in my opinion that’s a way to insure burn-out among the performers, and to discourage new people from getting involved. Who wants to audition for a show if you know you don’t have any realistic chance to get a good part? A truly healthy community theater will always be looking for new faces at each audition, and will be sure to give those new faces a chance so that they’ll want to come back.

3

We’ve had season tickets to the Hillbarn Theater across the Bay in Foster City for some time now. The Bay Area has a free night of theater program, and we used it to see “I Hate Hamlet” there, and we enjoyed it so much we’ve gone ever since.
The price is right, which is part of it, but a better part is that we can have dinner at home, hop over to the theater, and get home at a reasonable time.
Plus, they work really hard at putting on the productions, have great sets and music, and with a few exceptions do a great job. They’ve also been at it for well over 50 years.
It is also fun to see some productions there which we’ve seen on Broadway.

4

When we lived in Jacksonville, we used to go to the Alhambra Dinner Theater fairly often. Interestingly, the owner and his wife were often the leads. He played John Adams in 1776, she was Miss Mona in Best Little Whorehouse, among other roles. Neither one was particularly stellar, and their repeated appearances led us to quit going. I can imagine that the others who auditioned were pretty discouraged from the start.

5

It varies. The local Summer Theater Festival is usually pretty good, and it has a very nice little outdoor theater in a park that just screams for picnics before a show. (Too bad their offerings this season are so wretched.) The various Footlighter groups range from better than community college to worse than high school. The local Little Theater is just down the street a ways, and they can always be counted on to be entertaining. Good, no. Entertaining, certainly.

Being in Southern California, we don’t lack for theater of any kind if we are willing to drive a couple of miles.

6

We have several very good community theaters in the area. The best is probably the Albany Civic Players which is close to equity grade.

7

That’s one of the worst situations to be in, when the folks who always get the leads are also the ones in charge. Even if they’re good, it still leads to resentments among the cast and a certain boredom on the part of the audience after awhile. If they’re not that good…

I’ve seen that at some theaters I’ve been involved with, where one or two people consider the theater as almost their own private playhouse. It doesn’t make for a happy company.

8

In my younger years, I considered getting involved in a local theater group, but apart from not having a lot of time when I still had a kid at home, I worried about the possibility of cliques. I got tired of that silliness in high school and I have no desire to deal with it as an adult. But I might consider checking out the group in my county - it might be fun.

I have no desire to act, but I can sew and I can paint and I know how to wield a hammer and a screwdriver, so there might be room for me. Maybe in the fall…

9

This is why I no longer audition for a certain community theatre that I did two shows with. One of the directors will always, always cast a certain actress in the lead in his shows. She is not very good, and cannot remember her lines to save her life, but she and this director are an “item” so she gets the roles she wants. (They’re in their 60’s, and both married to other people, by the way.) I’m a few years younger than she is, and I’m also a character actress, so I know any roles I am right for will go to her, no matter who auditions. It’s discouraging.

On the other hand, she also works behind the scenes a lot as a producer for shows she’s not in, and she’s actually pretty good at that aspect. Wish she’s stick to it. :smack:

10

Something else that sometimes happens is when the directors are also actors, and kind of take turns putting each other into their shows. So Andy is directing the first show of the season, and he casts Bob and Cindy as the leads. Bob and Cindy might not necessarily be the best people for the parts. But Bob is going to be directing the big musical in a couple of months, and Cindy is directing that quirky comedy that finishes up the season, and Andy is hoping for parts in both of those shows. So he casts Bob and Cindy, to stay on their good sides so that later, they will cast him.

It sounds like I’m more down on community theater than I really am. As I say, some of it is very good, and it can be tremendous fun, both for the performers and for the audience. But as with any amateur organization, it all depends on the people that you get and on their level of commitment. Healthy community theaters, as I said, will be happy to see new people coming out to audition. Unhealthy ones will feel threatened by it.

FairyChatMom, I think volunteering to help out backstage is a great way to get involved. Community theaters love volunteers, although they might start you out just ushering or working the concession stand. If your local theater has a web site, check it out. They might have a link that you can click to volunteer, or at least some information about who to contact. If you have special skills with sewing or set-building, be sure to let them know!

P.S., since my first post in this thread, we’ve gotten the news that my wife and I have both been cast in You Can’t Take It With You, with performances in August. Yay!

11

We have an awesome local dinner theater nearby, at which we’ve seen Anything Goes, Seussical the Musical, Spamalot, The Addams Family Musical, and 1776. We’re probably going to see Into the Woods, too.

12

I used to do a lot of community theater (I’m mostly doing regional theater now) and MrAtoz has nailed it. They can be stupefyingly cliquish. I used to joke that if Robert De Niro showed up at a typical community theater audition, he probably wouldn’t get cast.

I can also add that there’s often a general lack of self-awareness, driven by the camaraderie that develops during the production process. People involved in a community theater production always seem to believe that it’s the BEST SHOW EVAH and are oblivious to obvious problems.

13

Vibrant, I assume.

14

There are quite a few small theater groups in Austin with very different specialties. The quality varies quite a bit from company to company and from show to show, but there are a lot of talented people do good work here.

15

Some good and some very very bad. A couple are basically “vanity press” versions where the same actors scam the same family members into buying tickets season after season. But there are a couple (McKeesport Little Theater springs to mind) that do really good work and have produced some folks who moved on to the bigger time; locally and nationally.