When I began surfing for US-based community theatres and related sites, I quickly became overwhelmed and utterly amazed by the quantity, quality, and variety of different sites. Any rumors about the death of theatre should be easily dispelled by the huge number of groups around the country. When you consider the amazing amount of community groups that are out there you start to feel like it's possible that anyone who is not involved in professional or semi-professional theatre must be involved in community theatre. Some of these theatres schedule seasons that a professional group would find daunting — with budgets that a pro theatre might envy.

Here are a few links to sites relating to and/or maintained by some amateur groups around the US. Although they involve amateur productions, many of the sites seem to have a more professional execution than many of the sites promoting professional companies — as a matter of fact, someone should do some kind of demographic study to determine why so many Web design professionals seem to be involved in amateur theatre.

To my knowledge the best resource for help and information about community theatre is the East Coast Community Theater Exchange. Designed and run by Mike and Chris Polo — active members of the Delaware community theatre group — the Kent County Theatre Guild — this site was "set up as a free exchange of ideas for working members of community theater groups." Their goal is to host a clearinghouse of thoughts, recommendations, suggestions, questions and answers to any problems a community group may come across. For example, their Penny Pinchers page presents ideas for stage, makeup, special effect and costume designs in inexpensive ways, and their Swapshop page shows where surfers can post info about items they may need or have to sell or loan. They've even created a "Virtual" Playreading Committee to read and evaluate new plays submitted to them based strictly on their viability for community groups. There are pages about directing and acting, budgeting, selling, building, pitching. As a matter of fact, almost every page on the site solicits the reader to send in a question, an answer, a request, a success story, an interesting theatre story, and the Polos make it easy to do so by providing submission forms all over the place. If the AACT ever declares a community theatre sainthood, the Polos deserve it.

And speaking of the AACT, the American Association of Community Theatres "represents the interests of more than 645 organizational and 435 individual members, and acts as an advocate for more than 7000 community theatre groups." They exist "to foster and encourage the development of, and commitment to, the highest standards by community theatres." The site holds a massive membership list, and details about community theatre events and festivals. As a matter of fact, as I write this, the 1997 AACT/Fest competition is drawing to a close. Although the AACT pages contain a list of those who competed at the regional level, you'll find many more details about the festival at the site of the theatre group hosting this year's festival: The Grand Rapids Civic Theatre (more details on the company itself in a future article). Here are the schedule of performances and workshops, bios of the judges, and a listing of participants from nine different regions and the shows they're performing.

The AACT also sponsors an international festival. Get a peak at what's planned for the 1998 International Theatre Festival (to be hosted by the Twin City Players and the Lake Michigan College Mendel Center), and see who's already scheduled to be competing.

I had intended to cover many more sites this week, but the volume is way too huge, so they'll have to wait for another time. By the way, the Polos at the East Coast Community Theater Exchange are attempting to create a list of community theatres on the web. If you know of one, let them know!

And don't forget to go see a show!