In the UK the term community theatre does not mean the form of theater for which the term is used in the USA, which is usually referred to as 'amateur', where non-professional performers put on productions for fun. Instead it refers to professional theatre work, taking place in non-theatre settings within specific communities. Much of this work has tended to be issue-based.
Alongside this kind of work there is also the concept of the Community Play, pioneered by Ann Jellicoe. Here there are no auditions as such, all the people who turn up can take part in the productions, at the discretion of the director or directors. Although paid professionals may take leading roles, amateurs do too. Because of the lack of clearing with the numbers in these productions, they tend to lean towards huge productions.
Famous quotes containing the words community and/or theatre:
“when Mrs Kindhead comes to collect for the Community Chest
grab her and tell her There are unfavorable omens in the sky!
And when the mayor comes to get my vote tell him
When are you going to stop people killing whales!”
—Gregory Corso (b. 1930)
“The poem of the mind in the act of finding
What will suffice. It has not always had
To find: the scene was set; it repeated what
Was in the script.
Then the theatre was changed
To something else. Its past was a souvenir.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)