If You Build It (06-04-07)

There is a famous line from one of my favorite movies, Field of Dreams which goes:

“If you build it, they will come.”

Now, for those of you who may have seen this classic film, these words are heard by a farmer standing in his corn field. He has a vision to build a baseball diamond, a magical place where the ghosts of famous and forgotten baseball players will come to play.

Of course, one of the great thing about drama is it can bring to life our wildest imaginings. Plays, movies, stories, and books...they can serve not only to entertain and inform, but they can transform us, if only temporarily, into worlds of pure wonder.

Also, some of the very best advice and words of wisdom can be found among their text.

This brings me back to the movie line stating that if you build something great, people will be drawn to it.

Which brings me to the dream of my wife and I to start a summer community theater here in Hill City.

This dream of ours was born when we first met, during the Prairie Community Theater production of The Sound of Music. She was nun in the chorus, and I played a soldier. We became acquainted as we worked on sets, rehearsed our lines, and waited for our cues.

The Prairie Community Theater was formed by some dedicated theater lovers in and around Quinter. Every four or five years, they would put on a big Broadway show, starring the members of the community. They picked family friendly shows like Annie, The Music Man, and The Sound of Music, which had some parts for kids and plenty of parts for the adults.

The Prairie Community Theater wasn’t just made up of Quinterites,. The co director lived in Grainfield and the musical director and several musicians came to every rehearsal from Colby. I was a teacher at Wheatland, the big rival of Quinter, but they were still happy to give me a part.

It seemed that everyone got involved. The men in charge of building the set were farmers who came to town to work on the set pieces in the mornings, and then drove back to farm in the afternoon and evenings. The lead male role was one of the town doctors, and the local sheriff ran the light board. Even the local Mary Kay representatives got involved by doing our make-up for each of the three performances.

Basically, being part of the The Sound of Music was one of the greatest experiences of my life. Not only did I meet and fall in love with my future wife, but that summer I truly fell in love with the small town life found in Northwest Kansas. It taught me the meaning of the word community and helped me to feel included and valued as a member of that community.

The Prairie Community Theater had an even bigger impact on my wife. Out of pure curiosity, she auditioned for a part in Annie when she was still in grade school. That decision led to her discovering that she could sing, dance, and most of all, that she loved acting. From Annie and The Sound of Music she went on to earn an Associates Degree in theater. Once we moved to Inman, it led to more than a dozen shows in six years with the Wichita Shakespeare Company, the Derby Community Theater, the Kechi Theater, Bethany College Theater and the Central Christian College Theater in McPherson. Her love of theater spread to my daughter who performed with my wife in a Shakespeare production and who performed in her own right for Inman High School, and for the Family Children’s Theater in Hutchinson.

Then, of course, I asked them to give it all up for us to move here. Now, understand that my family supported me 100% in my desire to become a high school principal. But still, my wife and daughter had to make a big sacrifice.

So I vowed that I would try to build a summer time community theater here in Hill City. If you build it, they will come.

After many discussions with the Arts Council and others, my wife and I decided that while our ultimate goal would be a big show , we decided that it might be best to start small. I picked a short family friendly script that could be performed with relative ease, a melodrama with lots of potential for some hilarious magical moments of mayhem. “The Great Recipe Rip-off (or Watch Your Feet When You’re Being a Sneak!) was first performed by the Neighborhood Entertainment Company just down the road in Hoxie. I thought it was a perfect beginning project in our dream to bring live summer theater to Hill City I thought that if I held auditions, they would come.

Of course, only in the movies do plans work out that simply or work out that easily. In two nights, only one person actually came for auditions. With my wife and I acting, we still need to find two women and two men to pull this off.

I think we can do this with just three rehearsals. I am tentatively thinking about two Sunday nights, June 24th and July 1st and then the evening of Tuesday July 3rd. Thanks to the Graham County Foundation, we have more than enough financial backing and we would even be able to provide dinner for each of the three rehearsals.

So if you know anyone who might be interested in a free dinner, or if you know anyone who just likes to make people laugh, please give us a call at 421-2680.
While our hopes of putting on a play this 4th of July may have hit a snag, we are still trying to build it, and we are still hopeful that people will come.