community theatre

Would you drive two and a half hours to see a play? Would you drive two and a half hours to see a community theatre production? I've just done that, though I have yet to see the play itself. I've done it to see my friend Kootch on stage. My friend Kootch, who used to give me a hard time about doing all the theatre I did.

Community theatre is an interesting beast. We pay money to see amateurs try to act (some obviously much better than others) in plays that would almost certainly have no life it weren't for community theatre, and we often think of it as "cultural" or "art." But in reality, it's barely even entertainment. It's not even a step below watching a sitcom. So why do we do it?

Well...it is live theatre, and if not for the community theatres, sadly, many people would have no other theatre experiences in their lives. The more unfortunate part of community theatre is catering to the audience with the stock of plays which you can predict were either done in the last five years, or will be in the next two seasons. The communty theatre audiences don't want to be enlightened or moved, or made to think. They simply want to be entertained. Just try doing a communty theatre play that has a cuss word and see how many complaints are lodged.

I'm about to see RUMORS. A play by community theatre god Neil Simon. It's not a very good play. It's funny. It's entertaining. And it probably won't offend anyone, so of course it's perfect for what it is. And truth be told...I'm looking forward to it, because I enjoy going out to the theatre. But I wouldn't mind if it were something with little more "bite" to it. Maybe next season.