Casting a Light on Community Theater

Photo courtesy of John M. Maurer

“Jennifer, stop singing,” my father said as he knocked on my bedroom door.  A minute passed, then two.  Creak.  Finally, he was walking back downstairs.  “An English teacher.  An English teacher.  If only you’d been an English teacher,” I began to belt.  “Jennifer!”  Sigh.  How was I supposed to prepare for my very first leading role if I could not practice the music at home?  These were clearly not suitable conditions under which to begin what would be a long and prosperous career.  I mean, I can’t imagine that Julie Andrews’s parents cut her rehearsals short!

I was only 12, but my passion for music and performance had been brewing for quite some time.  Rumor has it that I began singing in the womb, and I believe it because people constantly catch me mid-song—outside of my house, at work, in the store.  As for performance, maybe I waited a few years post birth; however, once I dabbled in the art, I was hooked, and I chased every opportunity available to me.  Church choirs and plays, school choruses and musicals, college chorales and cabarets.  So fulfilled was I throughout my schooling that I never once considered what this aspect of my life would look like upon graduating from college—and to be honest, I hardly gave a second thought to the arts during my first year of teaching because it was my first year of teaching.  Thankfully, I truly love teaching English to middle schoolers, so I remained content; nevertheless, within a few years, I began to notice the slightest of voids.  Theater did not really seem to be a plausible option given how much time my profession consumed, so I decided to join a local chorale.  As we have already established, singing is nothing short of a life necessity for me, so the chorale did begin to fill the void, yet I was acutely aware of the void’s refusal to depart.  My void demanded more—not merely from me but also for me.

Photo courtesy of JES Event Productions

A few years ago, I underwent a change in careers, and this change offered me the time to pursue opportunities that would provide unsurpassed fulfillment.  Thus, when Kelsey, a local community theater, posted auditions for The Sound of Music last December, I chose to try out, and that single decision has radically transformed my life.  Not only have I been able to experience the renewed joy of performance, but I have also had the incomparable opportunity to both learn and grow within the field, and I have been able to do so through a community that shares my passion.  You see, what is beautiful about Community Theater is its ability to afford passionate individuals an avenue to performance, and though that avenue may not be Broadway, we feel nothing but unmitigated gratitude.  Why?  Well, because we have the chance to do the one thing we love most in this world with some of the best people we will ever encounter.

Since that fortuitous audition in December, I have performed in three shows, I am currently working on my fourth, and I am eager to plan the fifth, and the sixth…and the one hundredth.  Community Theater has offered me a second home, and I don’t plan on moving out any time soon.

Located on the Mercer County Community College campus, Kelsey Theater provides space for fifteen independent performing artist groups, putting on more than twenty shows in a season.  In addition, the theater offers several productions for children such as this year’s Frozen Jr. and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.  For more information about both auditions and the current season, you can visit their website.

If you are interested in auditioning and would like to brush up on the process:

• browse through songs in our catalog, request a song,

The Greatest Showman Benj Pasek	Hamilton Lin-Manuel Miranda	Into the Woods Stephen Sondheim

• or find just the right monologue.

Mastering monologues and acting sides Janet Wilcox	A monologue is an outrageous situation! Herb Parker

If you are not interested in auditioning but would like to incorporate theater into your life from the comfort of your own home, the library also has you covered!  For those looking to read a play, you can find American plays in the 800s - 810s and English plays in the 823s.  If you have yet to read it, Inherit the Wind is a fantastic play that tells the story of the Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925, a trial focused on the legality of teaching evolution in schools.  I absolutely loved the play when I first read it in my 9th grade English class, and so I was beyond thrilled to perform in Kelsey’s production of the play last spring.

As for musicals, the library affords patrons myriad ways to enjoy them.  For example, if you are looking to listen to some of your favorite Broadway songs, the library offers soundtracks for musicals both old and new.  For those hoping to see an actual show, you can borrow musicals that originated on Broadway and were then made into films such as:

Chicago	Hairspray

The library even has a few DVDs of Broadway shows—such as Memphis and RENT—that were recorded during a live production.

Theater has been and will continue to be such a crucial part of my life, and I encourage you to incorporate this art into yours as well—as an actor or musician, a dancer or writer, and, of course, a member of the audience, for theater can have such an extraordinary impact. To use the words of Simon Callow, an English artist, “To enter a theater for a performance is to be inducted into a magical space, to be ushered into the sacred arena of imagination.”

- Jennifer, Administration, Lawrence Headquarters Branch