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:
“The peace loving nations must make a concerted effort in opposition to those violations of treaties and those ignorings of humane instincts which today are creating a state of international anarchy and instability from which there is no escape through mere isolation or neutrality.... When an epidemic of physical disease starts to spread, the community approves and joins in a quarantine of the patients in order to protect the health of the community against the spread of the disease.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“To save the theatre, the theatre must be destroyed, the actors and actresses must all die of the plague. They poison the air, they make art impossible. It is not drama that they play, but pieces for the theatre. We should return to the Greeks, play in the open air; the drama dies of stalls and boxes and evening dress, and people who come to digest their dinner.”
—Eleonora Duse (1859–1924)