Old School Theatre’s mission is to provide excellence in entertainment and education in the theater arts to the family community of the Spring Hill area.
That’s a tall order for a theater company just starting out. And let’s be honest… we’re a non-profit Community Theater, not Rockefeller Center or Steppenwolf.
But we do have aspirations.
We’re all living in a world inundated with on-demand television, MP3 players, and cell phones that can play movies while you wait for the bus. In a world filled with such marvels, live theater is a relic, a quaint and antiquated past time of a bygone era. It may have been the only game in town back in Shakespeare’s day, but times have changed… a lot.
But we see things a little differently. Have you ever seen a sand portrait done by the monks in Tibet? Exquisite creations of astonishing beauty, doomed from the first grain of colored sand. Traditionally, they are destroyed shortly after completion, with half the swept up sand going to the audience who witnessed it and the rest being cast into the ocean to be carried around the world. The last time you strolled on a beach, it’s very likely that a particle or two of the sand between your toes was from just such a creation.
Theater is a lot like that to us. Beautiful, touching, poignant… and, like the sand paintings, completely impermanent. When a show is done and the set is struck, it’s like it never happened. Aside from a few photos, no mark is left on the world.
Except in the hearts and minds of the people who saw one of the shows.
Their experience of the show is what carries it into the world. The laughter that brightened a day, the perspectives and insights shared by the actors through their characters… these move like ripples into the world, affecting everyone in their path.
If you look at it that way, a really good play can change the world.
We strive for excellence in our performances because its important that we do. And we strive for excellence in the workshops and classes we offer, because the art of theater is a remarkable exploration. It truly opens your heart and mind to new ideas and perspectives on life and living. And that’s important, too.
So yes, we are a Community Theater company that aspires to excellence, both on stage and in the class room… because we can’t think of a better way to help the community and the world around us than by creating brief moments of wonder that live in the hearts of our audiences forever.
