Verde Community Theater Information

Series Summary

“You need three things in the theater - the play, the actors and the audience.” This quote is undeniably true. In order to make a good production, you do not have to have the expensive props, the professional actors, or the grand performance space. While this may give an extra edge to a production, the most important elements in theater is the effort that is put into it. All you really need is a dedicated cast, a creative set, and a eager audience. Community Theater is the cornerstone for appreciation of the arts. When a group of people bond together in the task of creating something with great enthusiasm, the true spirit of theater is manifested.

In this expert video series, learn about the hard work and dedication of Community Theater programs. Stan Sutherland shows you how to start your own community theater. He shows you the first steps of starting a Community Theater program: board direction, tax exemptions, and venue selection. Then, Stan moves into some handy tips on creating a performance. With his advice about costume selection, set design, auditions, and rehearsals, you can start creating wonderful theatric productions in your community. So, start today, and keep the arts alive in your neighborhood.

Video Transcript

"On behalf of expertvillage.com, my name is Stan and I'm here to tell you about theater resources for community theater. Talking about how this group that I'm involved with here in Arizona get started. The group was originally started before I was here in town by just a few people who wanted to get together and put on some plays. They were reforming in a community building over in Cottonwood, the town next door in the old town section of Cottonwood, and they named the group Old Town Players. They put on 3 productions a year I believe. Very small productions, not very many props, not much of a set, but they were well received. There was really no other live theater here in the Verde Valley. Gradually the group got larger and they decided they really should have a board of directors governing things, keeping track of the money, and planning and that sort of thing, so they appointed a board of directors. The group continued to grow. Then it became to difficult to schedule the shows in the building they were in so they moved over here to the Clarkdale clubhouse. It's a community building here in Clarkdale, Arizona. This has worked quite a bit better for us. The building isn't as heavily used. We need to have it not just for when we're performing the play but for rehearsals and building the set and all sorts of things. You do tie up a building for a while and it works out better for us over here. We changed our name to the Verde Valley Theater this past year because we wanted to get across the idea...There's several towns in the Verde Valley. We have board members, and audience members, and actors and volunteers from all over the valley and we wanted to get across the idea in our name that the theater was a community theater for the entire Verde Valley and not just the old town section of Cottonwood, which is where it originally started. That name change has been very well received. We continue to grow and we've done very, very well the last couple of years with our productions. The attendance has just about doubled. That just takes a lot of hard work in the part of volunteers and so on and recruiting more and more people. It follows a typical pattern of a community theater where you start very, very small on a shoestring, but you can do good theater and you can do a lot of good productions and have a lot of fun with it without having to spend a lot of money or raise a lot of money in the beginning. Then as you go along, you kind of want things to go up a notch or two. There's time to do that and we're about where we should be right now."