by Tim Ball

TO BEGIN AT THE BEGINNING

As Stage Coach Players (SCP) continues to produce great stage productions in DeKalb County, we thought we should catch up with some of our members.  First, though, a little bit about our membership.  SCP is a community theatre group which is currently  over 150 members strong.  We have members who have been actively involved with us for nearly 40 years, like D’Ann Hamilton-White, who we’ll meet, and then there are members who began actively participating with SCP as recently as eight months ago and will be taking part in only their second SCP production later this year.

We all have our own reasons or desires for joining SCP and returning year after year.  “My introduction to SCP,” Hamilton-White told me, “Was the 1982 production of South Pacific.  Jack (her husband) was cast as Billis.  I was an avid audience member.  My first time onstage was Fools in 1985.  Opening night – my first time on stage in twenty years – I was terrified!  I didn’t know if I’d remember a single word I was supposed to say, or if I’d just stammer ‘til somehow I slithered offstage in disgrace.  But I did it!  And when I got backstage, I – silently – jumped up and down mouthing “I did it!  I did it!”  I got the bug…”

The bug.  It’s how many of those at SCP describe it.  Likely how many who do community theatre also describe the need to do theatre.  Sometimes it simply takes an advert in a paper announcing a show you really could be interested in to hook you in for the rest of your life.  “I saw an ad in the Chronicle for auditions, and haven’t looked back,” Norm Read said of the musical Camelot, his first production with SCP in 1998.

We all have stories of our first experience auditioning or simply why we auditioned.  Richard Christensen told me that Annette Johns, another member of SCP, cast him in a church play and told him that he should audition for SCP.  He auditioned at the annual summer season auditions in 1984 and was cast in both The Dining Room and Our Town that year.  

Additionally, once you join SCP, most of our membership soon begins working on other facets of the production.  Or in some cases, like that of Gloria Dennison, that is how you start.  She spent her first summer, 1992, helping with lights, props and make-up for various productions after stage managing the one-act play Lone Star in the spring.  For most of us, it’s a natural transition.  

After appearing onstage in his first production with SCP, Harvey, in 2015, Chris Swedberg’s creative talent in building sets and making props and helping as a member of the all- important backstage crew became apparent.  He continues to do so along with occasionally performing on stage.

Amanda Smothers joined the theatre in 2011 when cast in Father of the Bride.  “I have also done costume design, choreography, stage managing, assistant directing and directing.”  Directing is something she’ll be doing again when she directs the black box production of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) this fall. 

Other members of Stage Coach Players get drawn into our theatre because of family.  Oftentimes, their children, as was the case with Jeanna Hunter whose daughter Allison read the announcement for auditions for The Wizard of Oz in the newspaper in 2003 for SCP’s 2004 production and asked to audition.  “She was cast as a munchkin.  Who knew that this innocent request would lead to a lifetime of fun and interesting experiences and friendships?” 

SPEAKING OF FRIENDSHIPS…

It is hard to argue that when joining Stage Coach Players, the number of folks in your list of friends increases.  Whether that means you add a couple dozen new people to your Facebook friends or those you follow on Twitter or simply have dinner or drinks with, old-school, we accumulate friends.  Everyone who responded to my questions remarked that they had made friends through their time with SCP.

Leigh Foulk, who has been with SCP for seven years said she’s made too many new friends to count.  She added, “I feel like I was part of the group as soon as Gloria (Dennison) introduced me around at my first audition and I keep meeting amazing people since.”

Stage Coach Players can also be a great place to go for those who are relatively new to the area.  “I moved to DeKalb right before COVID so I never had a chance to meet anyone,” Lacey Toigo said, and continued.  “I am so grateful to have found so many great friends even after just being in one show.”

Hamilton-White pointed out something unique about Stage Coach Players.  We get to meet others we would likely never have any contact with were it not for the play or plays we’re involved in, and then they remain in your life for a very long time.  “People I probably would never have met or had any contact with are an integral part of my life.”

Jan Booth, who’s first production was The Show-Off, directed by E. Nelson James,
She offered that she had made many friends during shows, and quite a few lifetime friends. 

We can also sometimes view those friendships more as family, and Stage Coach Theatre as a home.  Mike Groark, who had helped with a couple shows while SCP was at the old building on Barber Greene Road, said after being cast in Dracula in 2005, he began to become more involved.  “Since then, I’ve found a home away from home, and a family that I love dearly.”  Adding, “And I mean family in all ways possible – supportive, dysfunctional, caring, argumentative, accepting of my foibles, creative, and dynamic.”

Many of us invite or are invited to each other’s weddings.  Tammy and I have been to several weddings of fellow SCP members and enjoyed the company of many at our wedding.  There have been wedding proposals on the theatre stage.  Richard Christensen also got married to Diane Parness at the theatre on Barber Greene Road.

IT CAN BE A MUSICAL JOURNEY

We’ll continue getting to know these members of SCP and hear some short stories and accounts of their time with us later this June, as well as what keeps them coming around.  However, as part of my questions, I asked if they had any shows they had seen at Stage Coach Theatre that they remember really enjoying or found inspiring.  Additionally, I asked a dozen or so season ticket holders.  Here are a small number of the musicals that were mentioned as favorites:  Jekyll & Hyde, Fiddler on the Roof, The Producers, Les Misérables (School Edition), Monty Python’s Spamalot, Sweeney Todd, Jesus Christ Superstar, Forever Plaid, Young Frankenstein, and The Drowsey Chaperone.