You Know It's Community Theatre When...- Page 9

[yeah]

Posted: 12/19/08 at 3:15pm

it's in a barn in the hudson valley, and the Sally Bowles is played by the 50-year-old woman dating the "artistic director"

[SporkGoddess]

Posted: 12/19/08 at 3:38pm

They weren't a girl group, though. At least not in the first production when my sister was in it (I didn't see the second, which was put on during my senior year).

[Meadowlark109]

Posted: 12/19/08 at 3:40pm

we weren't a girl group either. we were assigned songs to sing on our own. it didn't really work well IMO. however, i kinda like the group idea. kinda like Little Shop of Horrors style haha.

[blondebaby589]

Posted: 12/19/08 at 3:54pm

...the ensemble is split up into dancers and singers, so the dancers only dance with plastered smiles and the singers only blankly stand there and sing at the back of the stage.

...everyone in Aida is white. Including Aida.

...no one in Miss Saigon is actually Asian except for one girl in the ensemble from Vietnam who doesn't speak any English, and was probably only cast because she's Asian.

...the director makes a painfully long speech about the theater's season before every single performance.

...no one in Cats dances, except for Victoria who has been split up into two separate roles. Victoria (the singing cat) and The White Cat (the dancing cat)

...there are 6 bird girls and 6 wickershams (4 of which are girls) in Seussical.

Updated On: 12/19/08 at 03:54 PM

[dg22894]

Posted: 12/19/08 at 3:56pm

When you sell out the 200 person house every night
Having the actors be the crew
Story:
My favroite show have done is Seussical. I have done it 3 times. I won award for my community theater program and the opening night our Jojo did not show up (he was sick) he was 9 years old. We did not have understudies so our 50 year old director with white hair and all took over the role. Oh that made Alone in the Universe so fun.

[EganFan2]

Posted: 12/19/08 at 4:05pm

When the amount of people onstage is far too great for the width/depth of the stage itself. And you're all supposed to be "dancing".

Talk about a nightmare.

[RockabyeHamlet]

Posted: 12/19/08 at 4:31pm

You notice a severe lack of bronzer at the local pharmacies right before a community production of West Side Story is set to open.

[taylorPHENOMENON2]

Posted: 12/19/08 at 4:41pm

This thread is hilarious.

...when people are tailgating in the parking lot before the show?

[PiraguaGuy2]

Posted: 12/19/08 at 5:29pm

Cast members pick up snacks at the CVS across the street during intermission.
There are three dressing rooms for 30 cast members.
Your performing space is in the same building as a senior nutrition center, Learning Annex classrooms, karate instruction rooms,
You constantly have to relinquish the theatre to the schools, dance companies, and other various groups that the area is rented out to.
Cast members constantly have to be reminded not to eat in costume.
You have a "school show" which is at 10 A.M. during which the audience consists of confused nursing home residents, special needs adults, and one class' worth of belligerent teenagers who insist on informing the whole audience what they believe the production's sexual orientation to be.
Your director hastily cuts out half of the second act for aforementioned school show, explaining it away with a couple hasty, exposition-y lines of dialogue.
Cast members are forced to sell playbill advertisements to finance the show.
The same creepy reporter from the local paper comes to every single show to interview the director's favorites and take some unflattering pictures which can be found on page 8 of the Tuesday "Life and Style" section.

[Schmerg_The_Impaler]

Posted: 12/19/08 at 5:36pm

A middle-aged woman plays a sixteen-year-old girl, and a sixteen-year-old girl plays a middle-aged woman.

(Five words: Schmerg as Darbus in HSM.)

[PiraguaGuy2]

Posted: 12/19/08 at 5:45pm

I would kill to see that.

[Schmerg_The_Impaler]

Posted: 12/19/08 at 5:49pm

Ha, I am looking at my DVD of the show right now, but because no one online is allowed to know that I have a face, the recording of my performance will never see the light of youtube. It was definitely an Experience.

[PiraguaGuy2]

Posted: 12/19/08 at 5:55pm

Shmerg, it's funny, because I always imagine you (and everyone on this forum) as your avatar.

The image in my mind of Terrence Mann as Mrs. Darbus is too much to handle.

[Dollypop]

Posted: 12/19/08 at 5:58pm

...after the performance the cast tells you, "You should have been here LAST NIGHT. The show was so much better!"

Updated On: 12/19/08 at 05:58 PM

Posted: 12/19/08 at 6:10pm

When the director has a slew of cats named after characters of the roles he played in previous years of the group's history. Because technically,..the director casts himself in every show as the lead in some way shape or form, even when he clearly is not right for the role.

[jennamajig]

Posted: 12/19/08 at 6:10pm

...when there are two casts that alternate for a total of 8 performances - labeled the A and B cast - because the director said the talent was so great she couldn't just have one cast.

[Schmerg_The_Impaler]

Posted: 12/19/08 at 6:17pm

Jenna-- YES. And I've done shows with A-B casts that only run for four shows. And it's always a little disconcerting when I'm in Cast A and my friends show up for Cast B performances.

PiraguaGuy2-- Oh dear. I know I should have picked someone less terminally creepy-looking than Terrence Mann for my avatar. But I use Frollo from Disney's "Hunchback of Notre Dame" as my alternate avatar on other sites, so I guess that's not much of an improvement. Incidentally, I had a horrible dream about a year ago about Hairspray featuring Terrence Mann as Edna Turnblad, so that's definitely what's going through my head right now.

Updated On: 12/19/08 at 06:17 PM

[oohshizz146]

Posted: 12/19/08 at 6:19pm

The theatre smells like a nursing home

Posted: 12/19/08 at 6:28pm

the theater IS a nursing home!

[PiraguaGuy2]

Posted: 12/19/08 at 6:45pm

Jenna, that's nothing. You obviously haven't been exposed to Westchester youth theatre, in which 2-performance shows are double cast.

[dalefully]

Posted: 12/19/08 at 7:42pm

The ensemble is in every. single. number.

[LuPonatic]

Posted: 12/19/08 at 9:14pm

I love this thread...and am living it! aack!

[kchenofan]

Posted: 12/19/08 at 9:48pm

...when your school's special ed. teacher is the director. (welcome to my world)

[Madcap Maisie]

Posted: 12/19/08 at 9:56pm

Updated On: 6/12/20 at 09:56 PM

[Dollypop]

Posted: 12/19/08 at 9:57pm

When the costumes are rented from Brooks and the leading lady has to squeeze herself into Mame's gold lounging pajamas. The audience gets to enjoy the sight of the V-Panel in her girdle throughout "It's Today!"

Also, the sets are built by the guys from the volunteer firehouse and they are all VERY sturdy but clunky. Set changes take up to 5 minutes while the orchestra runs out of change-of-scene music, so they play the overture again.