A Sense of Community: Small Theatre Companies Thrive in the Five Boroughs
By Robert Simonson
30 Apr 2009
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The Heights Players' home at the Alfred T. White Community Center.
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| photo by Jan VanderPutten |
Which are the oldest theatre companies in New York City? The august Lincoln Center Theater? The venerable Manhattan Theatre Club? The longstanding Roundabout Theatre Company?
Ha! At a mere 24 years, 39 years and 44 years old, respectively, they are veritable beginners, wet behind the ears compared to the 53-year-old Heights Players. What? Never heard of the Heights Players? That's because, in New York — the capital of American commercial theatre, the home of dozens of estimable nonprofits — the Heights Players is that most modest, grass-roots form of organized stage enterprise: the community theatre.
It may surprise some that a city so bursting with top-drawer theatrical attractions actually has any community theatres. But New York has many more than one or two. It contains dozens of troupes, some of them with histories stretching back decades. The Parkside Players have been putting on shows in Forest Hills, Queens, for 28 years. St. Gregory's Theatre Group in Bellerose, Queens, has been in operation for 30 years. The Gingerbread Players, also of Forest Hills, has a 37-year track record. The Bayswater Players of Bayswater, Queens, is 35 years old. And the Douglaston Community Theatre began staging plays 50 long years ago.
Looking at those numbers, you can't question the dedication of the largely unpaid men and women who run these theatres. But you have to wonder why, in a city blessed every day with a surfeit of theatrical fare, they should feel the need to present and take part in amateur theatre productions at all. Why go to the bother, when Broadway is a short subway ride away?
Turns out, the answer is much similar to the sort you might get in any other part of the United States. "Most of us do it for the hobby," said Tom Williams, a director at the Douglaston Theatre Company. "It's our hobby and our love."
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"What really amazes me is we still have some of the original members," said Ann Gubiotti, the vice-president of the Narrows Community Theatre, which is 38 years old. "It runs the gamut — youngsters, young adults and seniors. One of the board members is in his early 80s." She added that some of the people who founded the group in the early 1970s are still active with the theatre.
Ed Healy, president of the Height Players of Brooklyn Heights, has held that position for 20 years and has been involved with the troupe for 45. He typically puts in one or two nights of work a week; when a show is in rehearsal, his hours increase significantly.
Among New York's community theatres, Heights Players is perhaps the busiest. Most companies put on one or two shows a year; the Players stage a whopping nine, and have a subscription base of 200 — large for a theatre of its sort. Most community theatres collect their audiences on a single-ticket-sale basis.
The Heights Players are fortunate in other respects as well. It has had a permanent home at Alfred T. White Community Center on Willow Place since 1962. Conversely, most other troupes work out of religious spaces. The Bayswater Players performs once a year at the Bayswater Jewish Center, which has a stage. The Douglaston Community Theatre works out of the Zion Episcopal Church, its home since the 1950s. The Narrows Community Theatre had to abandon its old stomping grounds at the Ft. Hamilton Army Base after 2001, for security reasons. Since then, it has been at the auditorium of St. Patrick's Church in Bay Ridge. Continued...
