Written by Mark Pelletier
I spend my 8 am to 5 pm (sometimes 6 pm, 8 pm, 11 pm) hours as a computer consultant specializing in disaster recovery. Before you fall asleep or close this message, this is not about that. I am writing this to show the wonderful diversity that I love about community theatre and to show you how differing skills are necessary to put on great shows. To put what I do in a nutshell, I make several computers in different geographic locations think that they are all one computer, so that if one fails the rest keep going. Say a location is hit by a hurricane- I ensure that business continues to run out of different locations so work is never interrupted.
How does this relate to community theatre you ask? Our community theatre is made up solely of volunteers. All the volunteers are integral parts of the organization and are highly valued because they share what they are good at and enjoy. While the audience pays most of their attention to the actors on the stage, there have been many hours spent behind the scenes to put on the show by the time the audience sees it. Some people build the sets, create costumes, set up, test and program lighting, set up and test sound equipment. Some people create posters, programs and tickets. Some people run all over town and hang posters and hand out flyers and, well, you probably get the point. Some people thrive on being behind the scenes and have no desire to be on the stage but still love to be involved and share their skills.
Here’s just one example: I don’t like to paint. I am not very good at it and I would rather do just about anything else short of being a chew toy for an alligator than paint. Fortunately, there are people who love to paint and are very good at it, so the sets get painted and look great. All of the things that need to get done for a show to go into production and thrill our audiences fall to volunteers with strengths and desires other than, or sometimes in addition to, being seen on stage. Every person has their own strengths and desires and when they volunteer their time to be behind the scenes, they are a huge part of bringing joy to the community. Old School Theatre puts on 4 shows per season and we all make lots of great new friends along the way. It is amazing to watch the growth and the knowledge that is shared. This is where I come back to the reference to my job. By sharing our individual skill sets, strengths and knowledge through working together we can create several layers of volunteers so that if someone who is great at working sound is not available for a certain show or full production, someone with whom they have shared their skills can step right in and the show will go on seamlessly.
So I have this question for you now. What skills do you have that can help light up the faces of our audiences and what skills would you like to learn? Old School Theatre always has room for people to step in and share their skills AND for people who are looking to learn new ones. This is what helps us grow as a theatre and as a community. We always have room for you!
