“It was a large cast and she needed warm bodies, and I qualified,” Workman recalled. She was directing the musical at the The Cailloux Theater in nearby Kerrville. He made his first entrance onto a community stage after his church choir leader coaxed him to audition for “Guys and Dolls” a few years earlier. Workman was bitten by the theater bug only recently. “I didn’t flub too many of them,” he joked afterward. During the nearly two-hour performance, he seemed to nail his lines. At age 77, Workman fretted whether his “fading memory” was up to the challenge of his role in “Leading Ladies,” a contemporary comedy set in the 1950s about down-on-their-luck English Shakespearean actors. The retired Houston trial lawyer sat alone backstage at the Hill Country Arts Foundation’s Point Theatre, going over his lines one last time. Only a few minutes before the lights go on, Walter Workman prepared for the biggest role of his life. Here are snapshots of just a few community theaters in small-town Texas. The more you look, the more you’ll find that-just as no two live performances are ever the same-no two theaters are alike. It creates almost a family when you are working with people like that,” Lee said. “There is an inherent need to be involved with other people. Townsfolk must join together to select a play, buy rights to a script (or write one), audition, rehearse, learn music, make (or buy or borrow) costumes, props and sets, sell tickets, apply makeup, usher, shine spotlights, and lift the curtain (if there is one). When you think about it, small-town theaters simply cannot succeed unless the community comes alive for the shows. But the actors? They are paid nothing-except, one can hope-in applause. The larger ones may employ small staffs and provide stipends to a director and some technicians. And they do it with miniscule budgets, with most counting on all-volunteer casts and crew. Some stage elaborate productions, musicals requiring a cast of scores. To be sure, many are in big cities, but just as many are in smaller places, such as Azle, Bonham and Cleburne. One theater in Weslaco holds performances in an abandoned water tower.Īt last count, theatergoers can choose from among 331 community theaters across Texas, said Linda Lee, executive director of Texas Nonprofit Theatres, an organization that represents theaters statewide. It seems there isn’t a space a theater-loving Texan hasn’t retrofitted with a stage, lights and seats. You’ll discover people putting on shows in the most unlikely of venues-previously vacant storefronts, warehouses, empty metal buildings, rented church halls and community centers. Because far from the big crowds and glitziness-not Off-Off Broadway but Way-Way Out There-you may discover what you were looking for all along: a community coming together for raw yet compelling live performances.īy thinking small, you can find the most intimate of playhouses, where it seems every member of an entire town has a role-on stage, behind the scenes or in the audience. But if you don’t consider the small places you’ll miss some special-even magical-experiences. It’s unlikely you’d think small, at least at first. Think big: Go to a city, search for a marquee, a crowd, spotlights, maybe some glitz. It is easy enough to find a live performance stage theater in Texas.
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