Community theater offers an outlet for enthusiastic amateurs

Isadora Lyons was knee-deep in diapers. “I thought I was losing myself.”

By day, mild-mannered, unflappable Mike Boorse lives the peaceful, calm, respectful Quaker values that are part of his job at Germantown Friends School. At night? That’s a different story.

Maintenance worker Allen Clark spends his days repairing wheelchairs and adjusting beds for patients at a South Philadelphia nursing home. He needs something to keep him from over-focusing on “everyday life stuff like dealing with bills and all that other crazy nonsense.”

All the world may be a stage, as playwright William Shakespeare wrote, but all the men and women aren’t merely players.

While some are professional theater types, with a roster of Playbill main stage credits, others — like Lyons, Boorse and Clark — are stay-at-home moms, maintenance workers, educators, lawyers, businesspeople and retired professors with a passion for theater.

For them, it’s an all-consuming hobby that takes up many happy nights and weekends of rehearsing, set-building and performing on stages in churches, recreation centers and barns.

‘You create a family’

The show must go on, but so must regular life.

“It’s community theater, and I think that word `community’ tells the story of what it is about. You create a community. You create a family that comes together. It’s not permanent. It’s an impermanent, transitory family that is wonderful,” said Daniel Crozier, of Germantown, a retired theater professor who will soon play a family patriarch on the verge of divorce at The Stagecrafters Theater, a community theater in Chestnut Hill.

“It’s such a joyous experience,” he said

Talk to enough amateur theater makers and you’ll hear the same story on repeat. Went to the theater as a child, got a role (or even starred) in their elementary or high school musicals – loved, loved, loved the experience from acting to set-building, but drifted away as adult responsibilities settled in.

“It’s truly important and is a way for folks to continue to engage in the arts, who may be gainfully employed in another way, but have an urgent desire to do theater,” said Jason Lindner, board chair of Theatre Philadelphia. The marketing and advocacy group lists auditions on its website under the Industry tab. 

“Everything that allows folks to make creative work and participate in theater adds to our community,” he said, adding that amateur theater groups build support and audiences for the region’s many professional-grade theaters, enriching the entire theatrical ecosystem.

Crozier said that actors find freedom in adopting new personas for the stage. “As you work on the character and develop it, you can do things that you can’t do in life — like being mean or stupid.”

Exactly, said Boorse. People who know him from Germantown Friends School, where he is assistant to the athletic director, might be surprised to see what he’s like on stage at Old Academy Players’ current production, “The Exes,” playing through Jan. 26.

“My real persona is someone who is an unflappable person who never loses his cool,” he said, “and the character I play is a very sort of bossy, demanding guy who is a self-made billionaire who is controlling the people around him.

“It’s a way of exploring what the other side might be like,” Boorse said. “It’s all pretend and it’s fun. You can explore those other facets in a harmless way.”

‘It’s my happy place’

Founded in 1923, Old Academy Players is one of the region’s oldest community theaters. Grace Kelly, a celebrated Philadelphia actor who became the Princess of Monaco, got her start there, just blocks from the Kelly family home in East Falls.

Lyons, a marketing specialist who had chorus roles in school productions, was at home with two young children during the pandemic. They’re cute, “but I felt very disconnected to the world,” she said. “I was bored.”

As the pandemic lifted, she saw a notice for Narberth Community Theatre and decided to try out for “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.” When she got the call during dinner telling her she had landed a part, “our dinner turned into a Joseph dance party, which was fun.”

Suddenly, she was singing show tunes in the house and teaching them to her kids. “A lot of us have some type of social anxiety, which is funny, because we all love to be on stage. It’s my happy place,” she said.

An added bonus? The post-production parties that wind up being Broadway musical singalongs, with wine, around someone’s piano.

“I’ve made a lot of friends, which is hard to do at 40,” she said. “Our bonds are very strong.”

In Philadelphia, the Plays and Players Theatre in Center City hosts a cadre of community theater groups, including Jasai Enterprises, led by Jaret Barron, who runs a marketing company, I Am Your Brand Man.

When he first started organizing theater productions, he was an overnight security guard and a kindergarten assistant, using his paychecks to fund his productions – aimed at providing opportunities for people of color. Eventually, after trying unsuccessfully to make a living with his plays, Barron started his own custom T-shirt and marketing business.

As it turned out, producing plays helped him find new customers for his marketing business. “There’s cross-marketing and cross-promotion,” he said.

Plays and Players also hosts Run Boy Run Productions, led by Clark, who works in nursing home maintenance during the day. Like Barron, Clark wants to use his group to provide opportunities for people of color.

“When you are done with the project, and people are applauding, it makes me feel good,” he said. “That’s as good for me as it gets.”

In the city, recreation centers organize basketball, baseball – and theater.

Barriers to entry are low, said Bill Powell, who coordinates the programs for the Philadelphia Department of Parks and Recreation. “It’s a recreation center. You don’t turn people away.”

Powell said center directors respond to the desires of the community. If there’s a will, there’s a way, he said.

“Whether it’s tennis or theater or whatever, it comes down to your interest and developing it. If you’re a child or an adult and want to be up on the stage, go for it. I encourage it.”

FYI

Keep reading for an admittedly incomplete list of community theater groups. Groups with upcoming auditions top the list.

Colonial Playhouse: Auditions for “Murder on the Orient Express,” Jan. 27, 522 W. Magnolia Ave., Aldan, 610-622-5773. On stage next: “Betrayal,” Jan. 24-Feb. 9.

Dramateurs at the Barn: Auditions for “The Wedding Singer,” Feb. 15, 17 at Reformed Church of the Ascension UCC, 1700 Main St., Norristown; theater location – 1700 Christopher Lane, Jeffersonville, 610-539-2276.

Grand Theatre, Home of the Road Company: Auditions for “Hairspray,” Jan. 26, 27, 405 S. Main St., Williamstown, NJ, 856-728-2120. On stage next: “On Your Feet,” Jan. 23-Feb. 8.

Players Club of Swarthmore: Auditions for “The Ballad of King Henry,” Jan. 11, “Legally Blonde,” Jan. 12, 19 and “The Wolves,” Feb. 4, 614 Fairview Rd., Swarthmore, 610-328-4271. On stage next: “Boleros for the Disenchanted” through Jan. 25.

Ritz Theatre Co.: Auditions for “Sister Act,” Feb. 3, Feb. 5, 915 White Horse Pike, Oaklyn, NJ, 856-288-3500. On stage next: “Angels in America, Part 1: Millennium Approaches,” through Jan. 26

Savoy Company: Auditions for “The Mikado.” On stage next: “The Mikado,” May 9-31. joinsavoy@gmail.com

The Stagecrafters Theater: Auditions for “Twelfth Night,” Feb. 18-19, 8130 Germantown Ave., Phila. 215-247-8881. On stage next: “Grand Horizons,” Feb. 7-23.

More community theater groups

Philadelphia

Philadelphia Department of Parks and Recreation: Many city recreation centers have community theater groups for kids and adults. Among them are the Holmesburg Recreation Center, Kendrick Recreation Center, Corporal Jimmy O’Connor Memorial Playground, Northern Liberties Recreation Center, George C. Pelbano Recreation Center, West Mill Creek Playground, Francis J. Myers Recreation Center, Fox Chase Recreation Center, and the Venice Island Performing Arts Center. Call rec centers directly for information or contact coordinator Bill Powell at william.powell@phila.gov, 215-685-3583.

Drama Group of Germantown, 6001 Germantown Ave., Phila. On stage next: “Juliet & Romeo,” March 21-April 6.

Jasai Enterprise, Plays and Players Theatre, 1714 Delancey Place, Phila.

Plays and Players Theatre, Jewel-box theater rents space for productions, but also has its own cadre of primarily amateur companies with many social opportunities, 1714 Delancey Place, Phila., 215-735-0630. On stage next: “In the Continuum,” Jan. 16-18.

Run Boy Run Productions, Plays and Players Theatre, 1714 Delancey Place, Phila.

Burbs

Facetime Theatre, 400 Franklin Avenue, Suite 109, Phoenixville.

Narberth Community Theatre, formerly at the Overbrook Presbyterian Church, with temporary current quarters at Circus Campus, 6452 Greene St., Phila. On stage next: “Into the Woods,” March 7-22.

Playcrafters, 2011 Store Rd., Skippack, 610-584-4005. On stage next: “The Trouble with Harry,” Through Jan. 19.

Spotlight Theatre, Twentieth Century Club, 84 S. Lansdowne Avenue, Lansdowne, 484-326-5172. On stage next: “Nunsense,” Feb. 14-23.