When a town is bursting with acting talent like Charlotte is – and disdainful of supporting professional theater like Charlotte is – you get strange mutant stage productions like Theatre Charlotte’s recent Biloxi Blues. Ably directed by Dave Blamy, Biloxi Blues was community theater in name only. What was it really? A fully polished professional production for which the actors didn’t get paid.
Robert Crozier played the autobiographical narrator in Neil Simon’s comedy memoir, which deftly revisits the comedy and the crucible of basic training during WW2. In Crozier’s beautifully calibrated performance, Eugene Morris Jerome became a perfect mix of candid likability and shy reserve. Likewise, Colby Davis was a nerdy volatile handful as Arnold Epstein, out of shape physically yet ethically buoyed with a backbone of steel. You could say pretty much the same from the most demanding supporting role, Lamar Wilson as the roaring drill sergeant, down to the most fleeting cameo, Gayle Taggert as the housewife whore who relieves Eugene of his virginity.
These actors and the rest of the cast – Josh Looney, Jon-Claude Caton, John Wray, Scott McCalmont, and Paula Schmitt – put in weeks of professional-level work preparing and performing this comedy. And they deserved paychecks as much the director and the designers that the system allows to cash in. Were Charlotte a town that supported professional theater, a good number of these actors would in professional productions right now, more esteemed by the public, and I daresay by themselves.
Short-term, the public doesn’t lose when community theater becomes so outrageously good. But long-term, the whole ecology of Charlotte theater is harmed. For the aspiring actors who could be making their first strides toward becoming as good as Crozier, Davis, Wilson & Co. don’t get a chance to be cast at Theatre Charlotte’s hyper-competitive auditions or to develop their craft at the Queens Road barn.
Free market conditions haven’t really benefited the theater community in Charlotte or its fine actors. At times, Theatre Charlotte gives in to the monstrous conditions of the marketplace. In mainstage productions like Biloxi Blues, that means surrendering its community theater mission.
This article appears in Feb 9-15, 2010.
Bravo for saying it!
Some have heard me say these exact things.
I have talent, perhaps not professional talent, and have long desired to show it here in Charlotte. It seems as though it is impossible to be cast when, in general, the directors are sending their same four friends up on that stage each time.
I wonder if anything will change because of the article?
1) Emily, you’re simply assuming that the directors sending their four friends up time and again aren’t worthy of the roles. Please remember that there are many variables in casting (talent, work ethic, personality, type)which are in play. And hey, if they can produce quality work then go for it. There’s no such thing as equal oppotunity in theater. And if you don’t like that, then get out now.
2) The article makes some good points, but I would take it further. The community of Charlotte doesn’t respect or appreciate the talent it has on it’s live stages. Of course, it’s an age-old gripe. But even WITHIN the theater community we are willing to scratch and bite and claw at each other. Actors moaning about other actors, actors bitching about directors (ala Emily), director who would love to do theater without actors, actors who view acting as a hobby opposed to actors who try and do it as a career, the ASC being nazi-esque with funding and hoops to be jumped through, artistic directors and managing directors calling themselves a professional theater when no pay is involved for actors, etc, etc.
Those are just a few of the reasons that the amazing talent Charlotte once had is diminishing with the migration of said talent to cities where they are more appreciated.
This article was good with Biloxi deserving of it’s kudos, very deserving. But the artice didn’t go far enough as to what Charlotte needs to hear about the theater community.
It is what it is.
But…Charlotte doesn’t have a theater “scene.” What it does have are a couple of theaters, two that pay, ATC and Children’s Theater, (which do the occasional good piece,)and the rest are struggling to survive.
Which is fine. But come on, call a spade a spade.
But, if you devote 3 months of your evenings to a show where the house is banking 26$ a ticket and the actors don’t get squat, something is fundamentally wrong. Very wrong.
And what the hell is going on with Artistic directors and directors being in their own shows? You don’t have enough to do already? No one came to audition? I don’t get that. At all. You’re not Mel Gibson, and this ain’t Braveheart. Emily up there sounds like she’d love to be in your show. Or any show for that matter.
And I will say this. If you want to work at any of the theaters that do pay, you better be in good with the three or four directors and artistic managerial folks that work in these venues. If not, you’re going to be S.O.L.
But like I said, it is what it is. That’s the way it works. EVERYWHERE.
It ain’t got nothing to do with
1) Talent
2) Personality
or
3) Looks
It’s who you know and what have you done for them. Lately.
Period.
The End.
I guess my point should have been that “community theatre” loses its luster for me when I see the same professional brand actors up there each time. And I see almost every play that comes around…
As for deserving, the people who are up on that stage are talented and strong performers who deserve to get paid for their work.
My only problem is, those of us who have readily enjoyed and participated in “community theatre” in other places might lose out on some enjoyable experiences of our own.
No need to be so defensive, darling.