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Players of Utica is a community theater located at 1108 State Street in Utica, New York. It opened in 1913 and is the oldest community theater in New York State. [1] It is also one of the five oldest community theaters in the United States. [2] The theater offers five main-stage performances each season plus occasional cabarets and other entertainments. [3]
Originally, Players of Utica was called "The Amusement Club", which was an amateur drama group beginning in 1907. [4] In 1913, the club was renamed “The Players.” They developed the amateur drama club expanding the field where they performed. [5] “Before building their current home at 1108 State Street, the Players have occupied a number of different locations in the Utica area.” [6] Additionally, their plays were mostly held in a city auditorium, and most of the performances were one-act plays. Later, they used a stage at the Utica County Day School. Since that time, The Players began to hire a professional director, Frank Stirling. They also rented a space on Mandeville Street, and they built a house, “The Player’s Workshop,” in 1924. They held almost all of their productions there, and the major casts, technical crew, and directors were paid from the profits earned from ticket sales. They also began to perform most productions at the workshop. Some touring performances were held at that time, so the number of its members increased approximately from 500 to 2000. They performed in the New Hartford Theater as their own theater by 1929. The Players’ orchestration was improved in 1939 by hiring their own orchestra group for 20 years.
The time of World War II (1939–1945) influenced the running of The Players. They lost the house, “The Players of Workshop” in 1943. Restoring costumes, electrical devices, props, and other materials that had collected in years was financially difficult. They evacuated to a warehouse in North Utica with some remaining implements to keep showing their performances. The Players were finally allowed to use a space in St. Francis de Sales as a stage. Nevertheless, they could not do the same quality as before due to the lack of props, electric devices, and costumes. Right after World War II, in 1948, The Players rented a movie theater, which gave them one day to do a rehearsal onstage, and the rest of the rehearsals were done at the Y.M.C.A. In 1950, however, The Players got another opportunity to purchase a movie theater, The Paris Cinema, and they started to run with a new stage again.
The Players began to incorporate a new system in the theater in 1939. Junior actors, who performed twice a year, were hired to perform. In addition, volunteers were used to manage and help the theater. Eventually, they purchased another space at the Methodist Church on Oxford Road, New Hartford, New York. The Players also improved the financial management of the group by performing plays such as Stalag 17 , Show Boat , South Pacific , Oklahoma! , Detective Story , and Death of a Salesman . In 1973, the second stage, called Glenn Flagg Pub, was built downstairs, which showed productions performed by children. However, in 1999, The Players lost their theater in New Hartford to a fire, which destroyed almost all of the implements that they had gathered over thirty years. It was one of the highly publicized, unsolved arson incidents in Oneida County, New York. Players of Utica reported, “All that remained was blackened timbers and, ironically, the shell of the steeple we had planned to remove because it was structurally unsound.” The next day, the event, Moon Over Buffalo , directed by Robert Barone was cancelled because of the fire. They discharged their debt for the construction in 2011 by an anonymous donor. [7] The Players of Utica greeted their 100th anniversary in 2012.
Players of Utica is funded by ticket sales, advertising in playbills, performances, concessions, and other donations. It is still seeking funding to complete its main stage theatre.
Players of Utica provides space in its theatre for the ARC.
Improvisational theatre, often called improvisation or improv, is the form of theatre, often comedy, in which most or all of what is performed is unplanned or unscripted, created spontaneously by the performers. In its purest form, the dialogue, action, story, and characters are created collaboratively by the players as the improvisation unfolds in present time, without use of an already prepared, written script.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to theatre:
Stage management is a broad field that is generally defined as the practice of organization and coordination of an event or theatrical production. Stage management may encompass a variety of activities including overseeing of the rehearsal process and coordinating communications among various production teams and personnel. Stage management requires a general understanding of all aspects of production and provides complete organization to ensure the process runs smoothly and efficiently.
A black box theater is a simple performance space, typically a square room with black walls and a flat floor. The simplicity of the space allows it to be used to create a variety of configurations of stage and audience interaction. The black box is a relatively recent innovation in theatre.
Stagecraft is a technical aspect of theatrical, film, and video production. It includes constructing and rigging scenery; hanging and focusing of lighting; design and procurement of costumes; make-up; stage management; audio engineering; and procurement of props. Stagecraft is distinct from the wider umbrella term of scenography. Considered a technical rather than an artistic field, it is primarily the practical implementation of a scenic designer's artistic vision.
The Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) is a regional repertory theatre in Ashland, Oregon, United States, founded in 1935 by Angus L. Bowmer. The Festival now offers matinee and evening performances of a wide range of classic and contemporary plays not limited to Shakespeare. During the Festival, between five and eleven plays are offered in daily rotation six days a week in its three theatres. It welcomed its millionth visitor in 1971, its 10-millionth in 2001, and its 20-millionth visitor in 2015.
The Stanley Theatre is a historic Baroque movie palace in Utica, New York. Over the years, it has gone through several changes of ownership, but has always been affiliated with Warner Brothers Pictures.
A rehearsal is an activity in the performing arts that occurs as preparation for a performance in music, theatre, dance and related arts, such as opera, musical theatre and film production. It is undertaken as a form of practising, to ensure that all details of the subsequent performance are adequately prepared and coordinated. The term rehearsal typically refers to ensemble activities undertaken by a group of people. For example, when a musician is preparing a piano concerto in their music studio, this is called practising, but when they practice it with an orchestra, this is called a rehearsal. The music rehearsal takes place in a music rehearsal space.
The Ritz Theatre is a theater located in Haddon Township, New Jersey. The venue is owned and operated by The Ritz Theatre Company, a nonprofit organization. The theater was added to the New Jersey and National Register of Historic Places in 2002.
The Boston Center for the Arts (BCA) is a 501(c) nonprofit visual and performing arts complex in the South End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. The BCA houses several performance and rehearsal spaces, restaurants, a gallery, the headquarters of the Boston Ballet, the Community Music Center of Boston and several other arts organizations. The BCA also serves as home to four Resident Theater Companies and a number of artists. The BCA's main building, the Cyclorama, is on the National Register of Historic Places. Boston Ballet's headquarters was designed in 1991 by architect Graham Gund.
Southwark Playhouse is a theatre in London, located between Borough and Elephant and Castle tube stations.
The Shotgun Players is a California East Bay regional theatre group located in Berkeley, California. It runs 6 to 7 productions per season. Its main stage is the Ashby Stage located in the Lorin District near the Ashby BART station.
California Shakespeare Theater is a regional theater located in the San Francisco Bay Area of California. Its performance space, the Lt. G. H. Bruns III Memorial Amphitheater, is located in Orinda, while the administrative offices, rehearsal hall, costume and prop shop are located in Berkeley.
Lincoln Holroyd was a cornet soloist with Arthur Pryor, Patrick Conway and appeared with the John Philip Sousa Band. He was an active performer, band leader and music educator in Utica, N.Y., from 1905 until his death in 1961.
Spokane Civic Theatre is a nationally recognized non-profit theatre located in Spokane, Washington. Incorporated in 1947, the theatre is one of the oldest community theatres in the country. In recent years, the theatre has been brought to a level of excellence that has resulted in many awards. The theatre's mission is "to foster an enduring love for live theatre in every community member." Civic, as it is fondly called by the surrounding community, sets a high standard for theatre in the Spokane area.
The Park Theatre opened in Finsbury Park, north London in 2013. It describes itself as "a neighbourhood theatre with global ambition", offering a mixed programme of new writing, classics, and revivals. As well as the main auditorium seating 200, the building includes a 90-seat studio theatre, a rehearsal space and a café bar.
Actors' Theatre of Columbus is a performing arts theater troupe located in Columbus, Ohio. It was founded in 1982 by Gary and Patricia Ellson, and was initially called Actors' Summer Theatre. Actors' Theatre presents plays by William Shakespeare and other time-honored playwrights, with relevance, to a contemporary audience. Actors' performs outdoors from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day weekend at Schiller Park in German Village.
Ballets with a Twist is a New York City-based company that performs the work of Artistic Director Marilyn Klaus throughout the United States. Klaus founded Ballets with a Twist in 1996, in association with Grammy-nominated composer Stephen Gaboury. The company performed the first incarnation of its signature work, Cocktail Hour: The Show, a collection of theatrical dance vignettes celebrating iconic American social culture, in Manhattan, in 2009.
The Marie P. DeBartolo Performing Arts Center (DPAC) is a performing arts venue located on the south end of the University of Notre Dame campus and open to the South Bend, Indiana, and wider community. The 150,000 square foot facility, which opened in September 2004, was financed in large part by a gift from Edward J. DeBartolo Sr., and the building was named in honor of his wife. The current executive director of the facility is Ted Barron. In addition to performance spaces, the building also contains offices, teaching spaces, and production facilities for Notre Dame's Department of Film, Television, and Theatre, as well as for the Department of Music, the Department of Sacred Music, and the Shakespeare at Notre Dame program.
The Uptown Theatre is a historic movie theater in Utica, New York. It opened on December 29, 1927, during the silent film and Vaudeville eras, and is the city's oldest surviving theater, predating the Stanley Theater by eight months. It was part of the Kallet chain of movie theaters, like the Capitol Theatre in nearby Rome and other theaters no longer standing throughout Upstate New York.