All Business

Back in November, while walking the dog - when I do my best thinking - I was thinking about theatre, and how much I love it and how much I miss it. All at once I shifted from feeling sorry for myself because I had not found any practical theatrical opportunities, to realizing that I really had not done much in the way of seeking them out. In Vero Beach, the Theatre Guild was very visible and accessible. In Albuquerque I had started volunteering at the Little Theatre a couple of months after arrival. In Meadville, I was drafted by Carmen's Church members. Here in Nashville, all I could see were opportunities too far away for me to consider as a basically vehicleless individual. But had I really looked for opportunities? I decided that I had not.

I came home from that dog walk, picked up my Kindle Fire and began searching in earnest. I applied to join the Facebook Group "Theatre Nashville" and the Facebook group "Hip Bellevue" and once admitted, asked the question "Is there a community Theatre in Bellevue? The answers were mostly answers I would expect in a culture that assumes everyone has unlimited access to a vehicle. There's one in Brentwood. There are two in Dickson. There is a theatre in Bellevue, but it is professional dinner theatre, and still a long treacherous walk in a place where sidewalks hardly exist. I expressed my disappointment, and then someone replied, "Start one." Start one? Start one? Is that possible?

Timidly I went back to the Hip Bellevue page and asked, "Would anybody be interested in helping me start a community theatre group in Bellevue? " Within a few minutes there were five or six "Yes!" responses. Within a few hours, we were up to fifteen. Within a few days we were over fifty. Within a week we were planning our first meeting. Within a month we had a name, a logo, a website under construction, a mission statement, bylaws, Articles of Incorporation and a Board of Trustees. We created seven committees, and called for volunteers to fill them. The Board decided that our first production would be Once Upon a Tree, a spiffy musical written by two of our members, slated to open in June. Now we have a Tennessee Charter, a bank account, and  enough money raised to file for 501(c)(3) status.

The Bellevue Creative Arts Community group on Facebook has a hundred fourteen members (last time I looked) many of them chomping at the bit for us to call auditions. April first is our target date for that. I have designed the basic structure of the set, with details to be figured out as we go. We have a director, a costume person, and a pretty big pool of interested parties who we hope are willing to help get this sucker staged. What we don't have yet is a stage. We are working on that, and I have no doubt that we can git 'er don e before June. All in all, I am pleased as punch with our progress.

My first community theatre was The Vero Beach Theatre Guild in Vero Beach, Florida. They started up in the sixties, with no internet, no targeted Facebook groups, no email, no cell phones, no texting. What a very different experience it must have been for them. I joined them in 1980, when there were still a few original creators working on shows, still enjoying the theatre family experience, and the thrill of bringing a play to life in front of an audience. I think now about how gratifying it must have been for them to have birthed this baby and watched it grow.

Our labor pains are pretty intense now, jumping through all of the hoops it takes to become a legitimate nonprofit corporation in the twenty-first century. Two hours in the bank answering questions and signing papers designed to prevent our meager funds going to drug lords or terrorist organizations. Can't raise money until we are 501(c)(3), can't become 501(c)(3) until we raise money. But the theatre family experience is still sustaining us, just as it did those pioneers in the sixties, keeping on keeping on, knowing in  their hearts that the curtain would soon open on a spiffy musical, and gladden the hearts of the entertainers as well as the entertained.