Welcome!

Welcome!

• If you are an existing or former member of the Verona Area Community Theater, then you will probably know exactly who and what I am referring to in every blog post and are possibly wondering if you will appear in any stories yourself. I do feature a wide range of characters so it is quite possible.

• If you have never heard of the Verona Area Community Theater (VACT for short), then you are probably wondering why should you care about these stories? Well, I’m going to tell you right now so just hold tight and keep reading.

Take a step back for a second and look at a broader picture: community theaters exist all over the United States and all around the world. Pockets of people with the same passion for theater work to create a space where anyone can experience the joy of performing and working on stage productions.

Yet, more often than not, these theater groups sit unnoticed in the very communities they thrive in. I know contradictory right. A theater could bring 3000 people to see their show, yet members of their community would still be oblivious to their existence.

We at VACT refused to sit unacknowledged in our community. From creating one of the largest youth theater programs in the state of Wisconsin (go mama Terry) to making $20,000 in profit from a six performance run (go Mamma Mia), VACT has proven its self worthy of your attention you random stranger who found this blog on the internet.

The famous Indian actor Om Puri said, “In theatre, you’ve got to make the connect with your audience in the first three minutes. If you haven’t, you know you’ve almost lost them.” It’s probably been about three minutes of reading, so hopefully you are still with me.

Let’s jump back in time to when this little project began…..

It was Wednesday, April 1^st 2020. It should have been the second day of dress rehearsals for our spring youth productions at the Verona Area Community Theater. Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, it was the seventeenth day in a row of sitting around the house.

The Verona Area Community Theater had never cancelled a performance in its entire 30-year history. In one day, myself and other members of our Board of Directors had to make the heartbreaking decision to cancel four youth productions: Pajama Party!, Seussical KIDS, Getting To Know Footloose, and Chicago High School Edition. With one email, we crushed the spirit of over 380 performers between the ages of 5-18.

I was extremely bored and had nothing to do because the pandemic effectively cancelled all of my jobs. Therefore, I volunteered to process the hundreds of refunds for these four productions. As I worked through the various requests one thing was common throughout all of the emails: compassion. In a time where multiple families were struggling to keep their kids educated, healthy, and sane, people took time and energy to write kind messages and share their support of our organization.

Merriam-Webster defines community theater as “the activity of acting in or producing a play in a theater for enjoyment not as a job.”

It is because of that enjoyment that over 50% of all of our ticket buyers chose to donate their ticket costs to our organization in order to keep us alive and safe from the insurmountable damage that the COVID pandemic has done to the theater industry.

With all of the free time I gained from not being able to work on our usual slate of productions, my mind began to contemplate my own journey with the Verona Area Community Theater and how it had shaped my life. I am 27 years old and have been with the Verona Area Community Theater for almost 20 years now. In those 20 years I have discovered new passions, made life-long friends, and learned more about life than anywhere else in my existence.

I finished my last official day working for VACT in May of 2021. These stories are my way to reflect on my life with VACT and honor everything it gave me. Hopefully you’ll see that this blog is a true testament to the power of community theater and the bond that exists among us “theater people”. Underneath the whimsical nature of my tales, you will see the dedication and passion that underlies everything our community theater does to bring the arts to our small place in the world.