Community theatre refers to any theatrical performance made in relation to particular communities—its usage includes theatre made by, with, and for a community. It may refer to a production that is made entirely by a community with no outside help, or a collaboration between community members and professional theatre artists, or a performance made entirely by professionals that is addressed to a particular community. Community theatres range in size from small groups led by single individuals that perform in borrowed spaces to large permanent companies with well-equipped facilities of their own. Many community theatres are successful, non-profit businesses with a large active membership and, often, a full-time staff. Community theatre is often devised and may draw on popular theatrical forms, such as carnival, circus, and parades, as well as performance modes from commercial theatre. This type of theatre is ever-changing and evolving due to the influences of the community; the artistic process can often be heavily affected by the community's socioeconomic circumstances.
There is a certain obligation that community theatre is held to because of the personal and physical connection to its own community and the people within that community. Community theatre is understood to contribute to the social capital of a community, insofar as it develops the skills, community spirit, and artistic sensibilities of those who participate, whether as producers or audience members. It is used as a tool for social development, promoting ideas like gender equality, human rights, environment, and democracy. Participants might identify issues and discuss possible solutions. Such plays are rarely performed in traditional playhouses but rather staged in public places, traditional meeting spaces, schools, prisons, or other institutions, inviting an often spontaneous audience to watch.
Partly inspired by Antonio Gramsci's interpretation of culture, the seminal theatre practitioner Augusto Boal developed a series of techniques known as the Theatre of the Oppressed from his work developing community theatre in Latin America.
In Britain the term "community theatre" is sometimes used to distinguish theatre made by professional theatre artists with or for particular communities from that made entirely by non-professionals, which is usually known as "amateur theatre" or "amateur dramatics." Notable practitioners include Joan Littlewood and her Theatre Workshop, John McGrath and Elizabeth MacLennan and their company, Welfare State International, and Ann Jellicoe founder of the Colway Theatre Trust, now known as the Claque Theatre and run by UK practitioner Jon Oram.
Community theatre in the Netherlands came about either from professional radical people's theatre companies, or as an outgrowth of the theatre in education movement. The big theatre in the Netherlands which was created originally for theatre in education and subsequently community theatre, is the Stut Theatre. This theatre idea began in 1977 by Jos Bours and Marlies Hautvast, who when they first started creating plays at the Stut Theatre, realized this kind of community theatre had a completely different approach from theatre in education.
See also: Regional theater in the United States. Community theatre in the United States was an outgrowth of the Little Theatre Movement, a reform movement which began in 1912 in reaction to massive Victorian melodramatic theatre spectacles. However, the country's oldest extant community theatre venue, Gates Hall in Pultneyville, New York, has existed since the 19th century and presented amateur performances every year since 1867.
The American Association of Community Theatre represents community theatres in the U.S., its territories, and theatre companies with the overseas U.S. military services.[1]
Canada has an extensive network of amateur theatre groups known as community players, and many belong to provincial associations, as in Ontario, where many companies are members of the Association of Canadian Theatres (ACT-CO).[2]
The alternative theatre movement, which had a nationalist focus when it emerged in Canada in the late 1960s and early 1970s, produced a number of professional companies that focused on local communities and histories. Theatre Passe Muraille sent ensemble casts into rural communities to record local stories, songs, accents, and lifestyle. Their employment of collective creation served as an inspiration and spread across Canada. Passe Muraille facilitated the first production of Codco, which employed personal experiences of Newfoundland culture in their shows.
The 1980s witnessed an unprecedented rise in “Popular Theatre” companies, such as Headlines Theatre (Vancouver), Company of Sirens (Toronto), and the Popular Theatre Alliance of Manitoba (Winnipeg), which utilized political theatre practices such agitprop, guerilla theatre, Brecht’s epic theatre techniques, and Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed to take theatre to the people and create productions by and for specific communities.
Second generation companies, such as Mixed Theatre Company (Toronto), and Stage Left Productions in Canmore, Alberta, continue this practice in the present day. Drawing on Brechtian and Forum Theatre techniques, and “making the invisible visible,” Stage Left has a long history as a grassroots group of “diverse artists and non-artists/catalysts of change who create pathways to systemic equity – in and through the arts,” and their activities “promote equity & diversity, provide support services for still-excluded artists and community groups, and produce radical forms of Political Art."[3]
In Western Australia, there are a substantial number of community theatre groups who have banded together to form the Independent Theatre Association.[4]
The South Canterbury Drama League is a community theatre based in Timaru, New Zealand.[5]
Ecclesiastical communities often encourage theatrical productions, be they for youth or adults. The Christmas Play is a tenet of modern church theatre. In addition to performing in the church itself, many parishes have halls for performances. In the nineteenth century, Christians in European and North American often performed plays in church halls or other rented spaces, often using the proceeds from donations and tickets for charity.
Soviet initiatives like the Petrograd Politprosvet and Central Agitational Studio performed improvisational theatre in the 1920s as a pedagogical project to tell stories about Marxist values and anti-capitalist englightenment. In 1923, the Twelfth Communist Party Congress voted to support their work for the improvement of proletarian life. The performers rejected traditional forms of theatre and called themselves activists instead.