Cascade Community Theatre’s spring show begins May 9 with a production of “Making God Laugh” by Sean Grennan.
The play has of a cast of five — two parents and their three children — and follows the family over the course of 30 years worth of holiday get-togethers, starting in 1980. The show consists of four scenes, each 10 years apart, where the audience watches the grown children (a priest, an aspiring actress and a former football star) grow into their own as their parents become empty-nesters.
Cascade Community Theatre (CCT) is most known for its youth program and its large musical productions, like “Annie” or “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.” But CCT President Dan Schuster said the group is working on strengthening its third prong: straight-up plays.
Plays are something Schuster said he was missing when he joined CCT years ago.
“I’m a singer, so I love doing musicals, but at the same time, I wanted to get my acting chops up, and there wasn’t that opportunity, necessarily,” he said. “To have these stage shows really is a great opportunity for people to just hone in on acting only, not having to be a singer and not having to be a dancer.”
Shows like “Making God Laugh” are also a good way for aspiring backstage crew to join CCT, Schuster said. Musicals, he said, are “daunting,” but small plays allow newcomers to dip their toes in.
Doing smaller plays is a good exercise for CCT’s team, as well, said board member and former president Martha Schuler.
“This is an opportunity for us,” she said. “We have had a very long history of doing big shows, being big. … This forces us to be more creative in our staging, what we have on stage, the use of space, what types of shows we do.”
It’s also an opportunity to test out a new venue, Schuler said, as CCT works to foster a positive relationship with Novelty Hill Farm.
Finding a venue is half the battle for CCT, which doesn’t have a dedicated space of its own. It puts on musicals at Wagner Performing Arts Center in Monroe and at one time would use Cedarcrest High School.
But an intimate venue isn’t all bad. In fact, “Making God Laugh” director Chuck Young likes it.
“You get such a great kick, as an actor or as an audience member, out of being in a small space,” he said, “being up close to really see how everything is developing. You get more drawn-in as an audience member, and as an actor you feed off that energy from the audience much better.”
CCT was born out of a high schooler’s senior project in 2003. Cedarcrest High School student Ashley Dowden, who was also a youth commissioner on the Duvall Cultural Commission, started an after-school drama club for local elementary school students, with the help of fellow commissioner Ian King.
After a few years of successful youth programming, CCT was formally founded in 2007, in part by Young, and added a community theater arm.
CCT was created by determined volunteers and continues to be run by such. It has a nine-person board of directors and many volunteers, but the group is always looking for more of each.
Check it out: “Making God Laugh” will run May 9-18 with eight shows at Novelty Hill Farm. Tickets are $17 for adults, $15 for students and seniors or free for children under age 6. Tickets can be purchased at cctplays.ludus.com/index.php.
