To Live Local Theatre

               You'll find them in cities and towns across the country:  a repurposed grocery store, an old train depot, a church fellowship hall, a high school gymnasium.  These venues and innumerable others house theatres throughout the United States, and the communities they service are as diverse as the country itself.  Participants come from all walks of life for a single, timeless purpose:  to tell stories to each other.    We've been doing this since early humans gathered around fires with tales of the thrill of the hunt.  Now, we tell stories of today's challenges, time gone by, and the future hopes we share together.  Our theatres live and thrive within our embattled political world, the town square where strangers do not exist, and everywhere in between.  In the American local theatre, our audiences join together, if only for two or three hours, to enjoy these stories as one appreciative voice.

                The companies which bring us our local theatre may be fledgling community troupes, or they can be institutions spanning decades.  They are little theatres, community theatres, repertory theatres, youth theatres, school theatres, church theatres, and every other kind of theatre imaginable.  You're likely to find them in your local high school, and even in school districts where belt-tightening requires the arts to live on a barely-subsistence level, the theatre faithful bring us our stories.

                If you're fortunate enough to live in college towns or perhaps major cities, you've likely seen thriving artistic scenes supporting many theatres providing venues for amateurs, professionals, and special groups dedicated to bringing specific theatrical visions to the people.

                Local theatre is American theatre, and it is as vital and necessary as it ever was.

                No matter where you are, you can find live local theatre if you look.  What you find may well astonish you.  I am continually astounded by them, and I have been involved with theatre in some way or other since I was a seven-year-old in a cheesy church pageant.

                I am constantly awed by the wide variety of people that attract theatre as participants, and the cause certainly requires all kinds.  The most obvious participants are the singers, dancers, and actors.  These folk are front and center, and without local theatre, you might never know that your accountant is an accomplished classical singer.  In fact, you might not know how talented you are, but the theatre is patient, and it nurtures all aspirants from the very young to retirees looking for a new adventure.  However, for every bright and beaming star of the stage, there are others who devote just as much or more for the great project.  They are carpenters, electricians, costumers, and many other types of skilled hands.  They are also those whose main talent is a willingness to be present and follow any necessary instructions to get the show moving.  These are some of my favorite people in the world.  They would tell you they are "just stage hands," "just ushers," "just, just, just."  In the theatre no one is "just" something.  There are no nameless cogs just down the way from Dilbert's cubicle.  They are your fathers, mothers, siblings, cousins, neighbors:  they are your community.  There are also volunteers and professionals who bring their very creative spirit to the project of the local theatre.  They direct, choreograph, design, plan, teach, worry, and well with pride when seeing the project they sweat blood for grow and begin to move on its own. 

                The truth of the theatre is this:  without one of these people, the spirit of the ensemble is different.  I've seen local theatres mourn the loss of one of their own with the respect, dignity, and circumstance that other organizations only reserve for their best and brightest.  I've seen scholarships, philanthropies, and countless awards named for ordinary people who devote their extraordinary lives to a local theatre.  I'm blessed to have known them, and I honor them in my own participation.

                In our local theatres, the audience is just as special as the members of the theatre itself.  They come together from almost everywhere, and for one night, they are a single body.  They represent a cross-section of the very economy of the town or city where their theatre resides.  Businesses understand the value of this.  Simply thumb through your playbill to see those local businesses who know the value of theatre in their communities and also that their investment in their own community is good for their well-being as well.  It is a human need.  William S. Burroughs famously wrote "This is a war universe.  War all the time.  That is its nature.  There may be other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but our seems to be based on war and games."  I would argue that our stories and communities keep our war universe from annihilating itself.

                To those of you who have not explored your local theatre, I don't know what more I can tell you!  But, I challenge you with this thought:  how many nights filled with rerun sitcoms after the evening news make one American life complete?  If you can spare just one night, then maybe, maybe there is a story out there that will touch your heart.  I believe there is.  I know there is.  I'll see you there.