Remember when summer used to be a time to sit back and do nothing?  That used to be the case for CP too, but thanks to our ever growing programming the days of long summer breaks are over for your community theatre.  Now the theatre is a hotbed of action all year and nearly all day as well.

Even just a few years ago this wasn’t the case.  Back in 1997 when I started here we would produce just four shows a year, and that was basically all we did.  This gave us a long two sometimes even three month break during the summer, great of working on a tan, but not really so great for building a strong performing arts organization.

Fast-forward to this year.  Currently the Beatrice Children’s Theatre is working on their summer musical “Honk” running July. 29-Aug. 2.  While Beatrice Children’s Theatre functions, as it always has, relatively independently from the regular CP programming it’s still exciting (if somewhat loud) to see the 60 kids filling the greenroom and auditorium every morning.

At night the older “kids” have been descending on the theatre for our second annual Young Adult Theatre production.  This program is designed to fill the gap between Children’s Theatre and regular CP productions by providing opportunities for performers from mid-teens to mid-20s.  This year is even more significant because it’s presenting an original show written by one of our own -- Tyler Rinne.  His script “Ignorance is This” is very funny and under the direction of Pat Marlatt the show will be hysterical.  I sat in on a rehearsal last week and laughed a lot and they still had a month until opening.  Don’t miss this show in mid-August!

Finally believe it or not we’ve already started work on our regular season.  Auditions were this week for the season opening play “Grace and Glorie”.  Guest Director Kate DeCoste has a great cast that will soon start rehearsals for a show that will entertain and tug at your heartstrings in September.

The active summer is just the beginning.  This season for the first time we’ll present six “mainstage” shows.  Our readers theatre series in its fifth season will present three shows.  Add to these special events, and education/outreach actives and you can see how busy things will be this year.

So my tan looks a little anemic and the long days of blissful summer breaks are a thing of the past at CP.  Ultimately this is all a good thing, but to be successful we need you to be involved.  Volunteer for a production crew, audition for a show, or just buy a ticket, but be part of the building excitement at CP!

Jamie Ulmer

CP Artistic Director

Welcome to the new Community Players web site!  We have redesigned the site to make it easier to use and provide more features for our patrons, volunteers and anyone wanting to learn more about the theatre.

Some of the new features include this blog which will contain occasional gems of wisdom from me.  Also new on the site is the ability to make tickets requests for regular season productions, this feature will be visible shortly before the first show of next season.  Another new feature is the “archive” section of the site which will eventually feature the cast and crew lists for all the shows in our 35 year history.  This section is still being updated but we hope all the shows will be entered in the next month or so.  If you see any errors in the archive (names misspelled, etc) please let us know.

Enjoy the new site and hope to see you at the theatre soon!

Jamie Ulmer

CP Artistic Director