The Biggest Mistake In Little Theatre

I was working late on a play at one of the theatres I design for here in the Pee Dee. That night, everyone in the cast was struggling with their lines, and the director was losing patience. He pushed them hard. I was running lights, and we were heading into our third hour of rehearsal. I had been there all day from early morning, and I was exhausted; so were the cast, who had also come from a full day’s work. One of the cast members, a good friend of mine, was at her breaking point; I could see it in her face. Not only did she work a full day, but she was also trying to get pregnant, and her doctor had her on a special treatment to help. Despite the challenges, she was still on stage. Everyone in the theatre knew her situation; the theatre was her support, but when the director threw a sharp criticism at them, along with the pressure to get it together because there was a paying audience coming to see a show, she snapped. Tears streamed down her face as she broke down and walked off the stage. After I caught up with her and made sure she was okay, I felt so grateful to her. There were two other men in the cast, and we all wanted to cry, but we couldn’t. We had to be strong. However, as the tech that night, I believed the rehearsals needed to stop. I never got a chance to suggest that idea because by the time I returned to the stage, another female cast member had quit the show.

After this experience, I see is a tug of war going on in community theater. You get involved, and instantly, you face this gigantic task before you. Somehow, you must manifest this complicated artistic communication in a short amount of time, with a limited budget, in a theatre that barely has enough seats to cover the rent. At the same time, there are people in the community who not only love theatre but also practice it. They hold terminal degrees or have performed on professional stages, but life, in the form of family, limitations of the body, or even the simple desire for a smaller community, has called them back. Some talents never left because serving and developing their community, along with the people in it, mattered more than the possibility of making it big. These are the individuals that make up a Little Theatre, the people you need, as they too need the theatre. However, at some point, community theatre seems to be in conflict over whether the focus should be on creating the show for the sake of the individual or finding individuals for the sake of the show.

Stories like what happened to my friend are not isolated incidents. In many of the theaters I design for, they make the mistake of sacrificing the individual. On the professional stage, there is a system that demands excellence and selects competitively, but local theaters cannot replicate that system. The community theater environment needs to serve as a refuge first, and at its core, be recreational for the volunteers.

Now, theatre people are complex as far as humans go, and with that comes a host of challenges. But, despite that, we know from making theatre, there is a flow of control. That flow is what ensures a show can be produced. The thing that must not be forgotten as you move with that power is the reason for it, the people who show up, eager to challenge themselves and grow. The ones who want to work together to accomplish something beautiful and share it with others in the community. That is rarely done without tears, but it can be done without bitter ones.

We live in a world where you are often told it has to be one or the other, but in theatre, we are manifestos of worlds, and the directors are stewards of everything inside the four walls. If we say, “we will have both honor for the persons that sacrifice, and a dynamic communication in show”, the walls will give what is required. That is theatre at all levels, humanity demonstrating greatness.