Feature: 650 AUDITION FOR TTIP SUMMER SEASON

Six-hundred-fifty hopefuls auditioned for the 49th annual five-production "Theatre In The Park" outdoor season. The 2018 season features, "The Little Mermaid" June 8-16, "South Pacific" June 22-30, "Into the Woods" July 6-14, "The Adams Family" July 20-28, and "High School Musical August 3-11. A combined cast of over two hundred community actors, singers, and dancers will perform plus an expanded number of volunteers, musicians, creative staff, set builders, and administrative personnel.

"Theatre In The Park" is the nation's largest capacity, outdoor, community theatre program located in a natural amphitheater at Shawnee Mission Park with space for over four thousand audience members per performance. Originally located at Antioch Park in the late 1960s as a project of the Shawnee Mission (KS) Sertoma Club, the program outgrew the neighborhood that was its original home.

TTIP moved to a location at the much larger Shawnee Mission Park before relocating to a ten- acre swath also in the large park in 1980. Sertoma raised the funds needed for the current stage. Over the following four decades, facilities have been enhanced. The stage has been covered. Restrooms, scene shops, technical bunkers, dressing rooms, concession stands, and a permanent box office have all been added.

"Theatre In The Park" is a line item in the Johnson County Parks and Recreation Department budget, but more than 70 percent of all expenses are raised through ticket sales, program advertisements, and donations.

"Theatre In The Park" hosts about thirty-five thousand outdoor guests each year. Although performances can sometimes be the victim of summer weather, each performance has an audience about equal to a traditional Broadway theater full house.

Kansas City area native and Producing Artistic Director Tim Bair has helmed the growing program since 2010 when he was drawn home after a long career as a performer, director, choreographer, and artistic director.

"Theatre In The Park" offices are now headquartered in the newly completed Johnson County Arts and Heritage Center in the repurposed King Louie Bowling Center and Ice Rink building. Also located in the building is a showplace museum, is a three hundred maximum seat, flexible, dedicated, black box theater, along with two large rehearsal studio spaces.

The program has expanded. A four show indoor season has been added to the black box along with a young person's four-show schedule, and a teaching academy both indoors and outdoors. The full time staff has also expanded. All costs for the inside productions and for the teaching academies are funded by the activities themselves.

Kansas City is fortunate to have built an incredible performing arts infrastructure. In addition to "Theatre In The Park," the area hosts the eight thousand seat Starlight Theatre, more than fifty additional, professional and community theaters, about 30 collegiate theatre programs. Not including the collegiate level programs, KC hosts more than 200 productions each year.

This will be the first of several stories on the TTIP programs.

Photos courtesy of Theatre In The Park and Ruth Bigus.

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