Student Blog: Coming Home to Community Theatre

Leaving College for the summer is always bittersweet for me. On one hand I’m so sad to leave my college friends for three months, but I’m also so excited to see all of my family and friends from home and I always can’t wait to come home to my community theatre. Currently, I have only auditioned for about 10 summer stock gigs total since my time at SEMO, and for this current summer, I didn’t submit for anything. I had my New York gig that was one weekend and I couldn’t have asked for anything more. I used to feel guilty and like I wasn’t doing enough whenever my friends would book summer stock contracts or were auditioning for everything they could find. I felt bad for wanting to be home and spend time relaxing and doing other things that I love to do. But, especially after this summer, I don’t feel that way anymore. I realized that community theatre is just as important as any summer stock contract.

One of my favorite things is walking back into my community theatre, Theatre in the Park, or TIP, for the summer. This is a big signifier for me that summer has begun. I walk in and I immediately feel at home. I’m greeted by people who I love and who I don’t get to see every day and I just feel surrounded by love and support. Last night, I went to TIP’s last summer show and I walked in and half the cast of the TIP show I was in this summer was there, along with a handful of people from my hometown, all coming out to support their friends and family. I feel at home and I’m not ready to give that up yet. As someone who wants to pursue this field as a career, these are my last few summers at home and I want to soak them up as much as possible. And I have no reason to feel guilty about that. I’ve loved my summer. It has been so chaotic and crazy, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. It’s only made me look forward to next summer even more.

During mic checks for Merry Wives of Windsor, the TIP show I was just in, our sound guy always greets us before we line up and do mic checks over the god mic and tells us to break a leg, and such. But one night, he told us to go out and do the best we could because we never know who is going to be in the audience and who we might be inspiring to audition for TIP next year and who we might be inspiring to get onstage for the first time. That really stuck with me, I never thought about that before. I got my start doing community theatre, I was in my first show when I was six and I was luckily enough to grow up in a house where I was constantly being taken to our local theatre to see shows since I was itty bitty. I owe so much to that and to my hometown theatre. I wouldn’t be doing all the cool things I’m doing now if it weren’t for that. I wouldn’t be majoring in musical theatre. I wouldn’t be jetting off to New York for shows. I don’t know where I’d be. And I wanna pay it back. Last night was my last visit out to TIP for the season and it’s always hard to say goodbye, but it makes me so excited for what next summer has to bring under the stars.

I’m not dissing summer stock in any way, I think that doing summer stock is so cool and I love seeing my friends getting to succeed and do so many wonderful and cool things during their contracts. I’m saying that, if you don’t book a summer contract or you don’t feel led to do summer stock-it is okay. There are so many other wonderful things to do. Go do some community theatre. Community theatres need you. Yes, you. They need us. Plus it is a wonderful opportunity for your friends and family who can’t travel to your college to see you perform. It adds another credit on your resume, you can learn other aspects of theatre during the show (If you read my previous blog, you know that I ended up assistant directing the show I was also in, and I learned alot from that), you can be in a show with your friends and family who you might not get to perform with otherwise, but most importantly, you can start that spark in someone else. You can inspire others to go and do the things that you are doing. To audition for a show. Start the spark. Go see a community theatre show. Enjoy yourself. Find some joy and as always, go do great things!