This past August my daughter Mykah auditioned for Alamance Children's Theater's (ACT) Fall 2017 production of Disney's Beauty and the Beast. She had previously been in a few plays at a local church. She got a part as one of the enchanted objects in the Beast's castle. I knew she was going to audition for the play and as a biased dad I expected she would get a part. It was a first for her to be in a play put on by a theatre company. My expectations for the production quality were not high given that it was community children's theatre. That's not because I knew anything about ACT, but because I've seen shows put on by other community and children's theatre groups.
At the meeting we received the schedule for practices, etc. I wasn't sure what to expect but I was not expecting a 3 nights per week + weekend schedule - and that was just for rehearsals. It was obvious that there was also set building, costumes and other activities I didn't know about yet that all needed to happen to stage the play. The directors also used terms like "blocking", "load-in" and "tech week". While I could infer their meaning from context they were all terms unfamiliar to me as a first-time parent at the meeting. It was also very different that they encouraged parental involvement beyond transporting the actors to and from rehearsals. My kids' previous activities (mostly athletic ones) there wasn't as much opportunity for involvement, and in at least one case the coach discourages it. He does have good reasons for it, so that's not a complaint, simply a contrast to how ACT was different.
While I was sitting in the meeting I decided I could help build the sets. I didn't know much else about staging a play, and costumes were a non-starter since I can't sew, but I can build nearly anything. I also wanted an excuse to use my tools again. I showed up that first Saturday and several subsequent ones to help cut, nail, screw and paint until we had the biggest set pieces built. I learned a few things about how creatively sets from previous shows can be re-used, how a bit of paint makes a difference, and how much co-operation there is between theatre companies. A good number of the smaller set pieces and one or two of the larger ones from Beauty and the Beast were borrowed.
Load-in was the day I really understood what the 'community' part of community theatre is. Someone procured a box truck with a lift gate for the heavier pieces, and another parent? Grandparent? or at least an interested party drove ~50 miles round trip to pick up some additional set pieces for the show from another theatre company. After we got the pieces to the theatre we still had several hours of work to assemble the largest pieces and make any modifications and adjustments to some of them. For instance, a table used in the Gaston song had to be strengthened because there would be actors dancing on it. There was a travel trailer parked in the lot behind the theatre for the convenience of the actors. In addition to all the set moving, the dressing rooms needed to be set up, costumes mysteriously appeared from somewhere and some final fitting on them was done. I'm sure I'm overlooking a lot of other work that happened but thats just ignorance of what has to happen to stage a successful play.
I will always be grateful that my wife insisted I stay for the dress rehearsal. I was surprised by the quality of the show, and the creativity and quality of the costumes was amazing. Mykah and I both had a wonderful experience participating in this production. Both of us look forward to the next one. Thank you to the producers, directors, se builders and anyone else I've left out for making this a great experience for her as first-time actor and me as a first-time theatre parent.
