Acting Up Around Town: Benefits of Working with Community Theater

The house lights lower. Excitement builds as first time performers stand side by side with seasoned veterans waiting for their opening cue. After all the hours of rehearsal and memorizing lines, it's show time at last.

For the past several years, I have been involved with work in my local community theater. I have been able to see first hand the many benefits that community theater provides to everyone involved.
The theater I work with, Dynamics Community Theater, is a multi-generational theater. We specifically look for plays that will involve children and adults. This helps us to build a sense of community across different age groups. We get the chance to develop relationships with people of all ages within the community.

For the people involved, community theater helps build personal skill as well. Many of these skills are useful in other areas of life outside the theater. Skills like improved communication, critical thinking, and social skills are all key components of any self-help program. They can be developed for free in community theater.

Communication Skills

For many people, speaking in front of a crowd is their number one fear. When they're forced to stand in front of a crowd and speak, panic sets in. They forget what they were going to say. They stammer and stumble, which only makes their fear worse the next time. Community theater allows the actors to get experience in front of a crowd, which makes them able to be more relaxed in other public speaking situations. By having the opportunity to practice their lines repeatedly, and then deliver those lines on stage, they learn a critical skill that will benefit them in many areas in the academic and business world. They also develop the ability to add expression and gestures to their speech, rather than being frozen in place. They have the ability to look at public speaking as just another performance.

Young actors also learn how to express themselves. Many times an actor has the opportunity to develop their character. They learn how to express what they are feeling through their character. They also have to be able to convey those ideas to others in the play, so the other characters understand why their character reacts the way they do.

Critical Thinking Skills

Many times throughout the course of a production cast members have the opportunity to give their thoughts on ways to improve the production. With limited budgets, theater groups must be creative in coming up with ways to present certain scenes with the use of props and sets, as well as the way the lines are delivered. As your experience with working in these types of production increase, so does your ability to overcome obstacles creatively.

With character development, you have the chance to experiment with different styles and voices. You have to think through how your character would react to different situations. You learn to look at not only the personality of the character, but also look at any cultural differences, and at differences in time periods and how that would affect the character.

Social Skills

Community theater productions require teamwork. While individual performances do have the ability to make or break a production, it is the ability of the cast and crew to come together as a single unit that determines the success or failure of a production.

It is the ability of the members of the production to be able to play off of each other, and react to each other that make the play believable. You have to be ready to step in and help another player with a forgotten line or a missed cue. In order to do that effectively, you have to be able to develop a certain amount of sensitivity to your fellow cast members. You will be able to tell by their expression that they've forgotten the next line, and you will be able to step in before the audience is even aware there was a problem.

As a cast member, you also have to be able to overcome personal differences for the sake of the production. If two cast members are not getting along in their personal life, those differences cannot be allowed to show up on the stage. Personal likes and dislikes have to be set aside. Actors need to learn to become their character, and forget any problems in their personal lives.

Cast members also have opportunities to help others as they work to memorize their lines and develop their characters. They can develop valuable skills for interacting with people.

Creativity

Working in a community theater provides a creative outlet. It's fun to see people who claim that they can't act, take on a role, and develop the character. On the night of the show, you can't tell the rookies from the seasoned veterans.

Acting is not the only way for people to get involved and use their creativity. There is plenty to do behind the scenes. Sets need to be designed and constructed, costumes need to be designed, and lighting has to be put in place.

If the production is a musical, there may be opportunities to help choreograph part of the dance sequences. Aspiring directors may have the chance to work with the director in developing certain scenes. There are always opportunities to help work with the very young members of the cast.

Other Benefits

Throughout the course of a production, you can see the self confidence growing in many of the cast members. You get to witness them moving from being unsure of their ability to act, to gaining the confidence in their own ability that comes from hours of practice. You see people that may struggle for acceptance in other areas of their lives, be embraced as a member of the cast.

Members of the cast learn responsibility. Each person has a distinct role to play. Each role is a part of the fabric that makes up the play. They see first hand how their individual effort contributes to the production, even if they don't have a "starring" role.

Which brings us back to opening night. As the curtain rises, and the play begins, members of the cast feel the sense of achievement and satisfaction that comes from knowing, through hard work and effort, through hours of rehearsal and preparation, they have taken words on a page and turned them into a living production. The audience laughs and cheers, and shares in the fun as the cast presents their interpretation of the play. And when it's all over, members still have the memories, and friendships, and a feeling of belonging to the community.