Jennifer Crane, President, Director, and Choreographer for this production, said it's always a bitter sweet moment when they finish up for the year, "You're excited to have your life back but at the same time you become a family and then all of a sudden you're just done." Crane said they sold out all four shows this year, which is always exciting for the Players, "It gives us that positive encouragement going forward as well. All the shows were phenomenal, everyone put in 250 percent every night if not more."
The Community Players start preparing for their shows before Christmas holidays with rehearsals starting on the first Sunday in January. Actors and actresses will meet every Sunday afternoon and Wednesday evening and the orchestra meets Sunday evenings for three months. Crane describes it as a 'a lot of moving parts and a lot of time and patience' before everything comes together into one show.
Crane says the Community Players always lean towards musicals when choosing plays, "When you have so much talent in your community and so many people who want to be involved in something, how do you not do a musical when you have the people to play instruments and people with singing voices." She also mentions that musicals have a different type of energy, "The dancing, the liveliness, the energy. Musicals are just more exciting to be apart of... There's so much talent as far as the music aspect goes in the community, that I can't imagine not doing one."
Although Crane does not perform on stage, she says putting on these productions for her community is always a mixture of support and surprise. "The biggest thing, and I know the same for me and the co-director and musical director, the number one word would be support. There's not really nerves or anything like that. The other thing is surprise. Every year, I think everyone is really surprised that the farmer in the field or pharmacist or bank teller has so much talent. You don't realize it until you have the opportunity to showcase it."
Sun, Apr 28, 11:00 AM
