Community Theatre

   Tina Fey on her community theatre experience growing up: "We should strive to make our society more like Summer Showtime: Mostly a meritocracy, despite some vicious bacikstabbing. Everyone gets a spot in the chorus. Bring white shorts from home."

    Kryssi on community theatre: "Community Theatre is where young actors are born and where old actors go to die."

   I almost did  a show with Lakewood Players back in the day. Halfway through rehearsals the director quit. I never tried community theatre again, I thought that my experience was the norm:  All directors are prima donna assholes, and it's weird for a fourteen year old (me) to play "Electra" in Gypsy,( who is a stripper), with full grown women playing the other strippers. And mostly full grown men in the male roles. It was too weird, so I stuck to shows at school. Everyone I did shows with, however, had been in ACT shows and had warm, accepting experiences in community theatre. Even if Reno Sweeney was 14 and Sir Evelyn was 28.

   When I was hired to do Hairspray, Jr. as a two week summer camp for 7-12 graders, the age thing was not on my mind. Mostly on my mind was doing Hairspray in Highlands Ranch with one black kid, who was bussed in from Arvada. The hell? But I was willing to just go with it, as I seemed to be the only one consistently giggling when the white girl playing "Motormouth" sang "The night is black as my skin."

    During a final rehearsal we had a kissing class. 'cause Tracy and Link need to kiss, and Seaweed and Penny should kiss. Seaweed and Penny came to me during lunch,  Penny deeply concerned about kissing because Seaweed is "so much older than I am. He's four years older than me."

          And of course, the delightful demon in  my head began jumping and clapping and singing "And he's black! Mostly it's because he's black! You don't want to kiss the black kid!"

    To his beautiful credit, the kid playing Seaweed was very supportive of her and agreed he thought the age thing made it weird. Penny had not had her first kiss in real life yet. Rather than explain at great length that she's acting and stage kisses do not count, I let it go. In addition to the cavernous difference in their ages, he was about three feet taller than she was. That made him look older.

    Also, he's black.

    I kept trying to tell myself that she really was worried about the age thing, because it's HAIRSPRAY and the whole show is about race. Well, the whole whole show is about race. In the "Jr" version they remove huge chunks of story line, so truly, unless you're paying attention you could miss it, particularly when there is only one black actor.  So I smiled and made it work for them, and they were happy.

    Theatre camps are a thing now. When I was a kid we had community theatre. That was it. Theatre Camps were back east, or in the Catskills, where the richie rich kiddos went for a summer of theatre instruction and performance. I imagined they were like the movie, CAMP. (Which everyone in theatre should watch, by the way. Those are your people.) And those camps still exist, and they go all summer. But they aren't community theatre-esque. They are a different beast. They are expensive and full of truly talented, Broadway bound kiddos. Or so I imagined. I do not know for a fact since I never attended such a camp.

    Theatre camps seemed to have taken the place of community theatre. We still have community theatre, yes, but it's  moved toward young adults and adult teachers who do theatre over the summer. Teenagers get left out unless they are a true triple threat. Theatre camps have taken that spot. But you have to pay tuition for the camp, so it cannot truly be "community" theatre when many kids cannot afford to attend.

    Which reminds me of the immortal words of Edward Albee: "Theatre is too fucking expensive."

    I really dug the way things were set up with Hairspray, Jr.  It felt like a real community theatre, everyone got a spot in the chorus. But not everyone got to be a part of it, because it is tuition based. My friend Dr. Megan did several shows with ACT in high school, and she said they sent home what your costume needs were and your mom made it. Her mom drove her all over Lakewood for rehearsals, and after the shows they would all go to the Organ Grinder. It was truly community. Everybody got to do it and nobody paid tuition.
   
      Clearly I  haven't been "out there" in a while, as I'm struggling with the new definition of "community theatre" as it exists with theatre camps. I'm also struggling with the way working on this has altered my thinking about how I teach, in general.

     I was flabberghasted at how willing and eager these kids were to learn theatre. Since it's a "community camp", it's weird. The kids who sign up aren't necessarily theatre kids. Their talents are all over the map. I had assumed--and every time I assume I'm wrong--that because it is called a Performing Arts Academy, there would be a level of experience and talent among the kids. Nope. We had kids who had never been on stage before in their lives. And several who were practically raised in this program, who use it as their theatre outlet because they are in sports or clubs at school that prevent them from doing theatre. And everyone in between.

     And every single one of them was respectful. Kind. Willing to help. Excited to learn something new. Jazzed about being on stage. The camp runs two shows -Aladdin, Jr. was second through sixth grade and they shared time and lunch with Hairspray, Jr. So the older kids mingled with the younger ones, ate lunch and snack together. Started and ended their day as a big group. Everyone showed up happy and left happy.

    Nobody was a prima donna. Nobody was rude or tried to direct another actor. When Genoa came in to give them instruction on how to create hair and makeup for 1962 they were attentive, and excited and willingly did their research.

    They gave me candy and love notes. They asked if I was coming back next year. They thanked me.

     This "camp" was the closest thing I have ever experienced to a true community theatre. It doesn't mean that other programs do not exist, I just haven't worked for them. There were bumps and issues, mostly attributed to the fact that this program is growing. So what? Growing pains are not a bad thing.

     I'm not sold on a "no cut" show at the high school level, but I did love feeling appreciated. It was gratifying to see them work so hard, even if they did not have the talent to pull it off. Even if there was not enough time between class and performance for them to synthesize, they still did the work. I told Eric after the show that's what was frustrating for me, but I know what they learned on this show will show up the next time they do a show. An Acting Grenade. I pulled the pin, but it didn't quite blow up yet. That's ok. It's waiting to go off.

   If the lights in my own theatre do not get fixed, this is my back up plan: Work this camp and the DCPA. There is no retirement plan, so I'd have to teach Lit at LHS. My husband is very wound up about my retirement plan.

     Or I can just take what I've learned, and return to this next summer. If the lights at LHS do not get fixed, my kids can bring flashlights from home instead of white shorts.

      So I got that going for me.