Highlands-Cashiers Players has announced their first full season since the Covid-19 pandemic, proving once more that community theatre is alive and thriving.
While Highlands-Cashiers Players had successful shows this year, they want the community to get excited for 2024. Next year’s season will feature some lighthearted familiars. “Love Letters,” “Squabbles,” “Always a Bridesmaid,” and “The Lifespan of a Fact” will grace stages throughout the year.
Foy Tuttle, director of “Love Letters,” Scott Ewing, director of “Squabbles,” Ricky Siegel, director of “Always a Bridesmaid,” Michael Lanzilotta, director of “The Lifespan of a Fact,” and members of the Highlands-Cashiers Players board discussed the upcoming season, the path forward from Covid, and the importance of community theatre.
The return
Participation in the arts tapered off with the pandemic. The current Highlands-Cashiers Players board worked hard to revive the arts this year and 2023’s mini season featured “Sylvia” and “Parallel Lives,” not to mention the upcoming holiday show, but 2024 will be bigger and better.
“We’re really on a path to rebuild and revitalize this organization,” said Lanzilotta. He said the arts were basically put out of sight and out of mind, but Highlands-Cashiers Players are bringing the arts back to the forefront. They are also reestablishing their name with the help of the community. “We essentially want to rebuild the credibility we had the last 23 years and move it forward,” Lanzilotta continued.
Lanzilotta, who is also on the board, said Highlands-Cashiers Players have expanded their geographic area. They’ve partnered with a theatre company in Georgia. They have also tapped actors and directors from near and across the plateau, and they continue looking for that talent. However, he assured Highlands is still the company’s home and the plateau is still the primary community they cater to. The plateau is also the community the theatre needs most.
“One of the things we need more than anything is more participation in what we do,” Siegel said. “There’s a lot of ways for people in Highlands, if they want to get involved in theatre, to get involved.”
The theatre is fully volunteer based. Even if community members aren’t actors, they can serve on the board, financially donate so the theatre can break even, or they can volunteer in other roles. Ushers, backstage workers, makeup, dressers, even bartenders or concession workers can join Jim Spencer, a member of the board who focuses on the website, social media, and backstage, to help the arts move forward.
The future
The season begins in February with an emotional performance to set the mood for Valentine’s Day. “Love Letters,” originally by A.R. Gurney, portrays two lovers reading letters they’ve sent to each other throughout their lives. It is directed by Foy Tuttle and will run Feb. 1-4 and 8-11.
Tuttle, who directed 2023’s “Sylvia,” said the challenge of “Love Letters” is that it isn’t a dynamic, motion-centered performance, but rather a play that has to focus on conveying love.
“We have to work to make someone reading a letter interesting to the audience. Thankfully, the writing is so good that it helps greatly,” Tuttle said.
Auditions for the plays after “Love Letters” will be held the second week of January.
Spring cleaning, much less complicated family dynamics, can bring quarrels. “Squabbles,” a Marshall Karp piece, tells the story of a young couple dealing with her father and his mother moving in. It is directed by Scott Ewing and will run March 28-31 and April 4-7.
Ewing said “Squabbles” is “about the all-too-typical American family.” Sandwiched generations may relate to their children and parents sometimes at every corner.
“Always a Bridesmaid” by Jones, Hope & Wooten humorously follows a group of women throughout their weddings. It is directed by Ricky Siegel and will run May 9-12 and 16-19.
“Six women in high school all said they would attend each others’ weddings. One of them has had several weddings. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t,” Siegel said.
And finally for the main season, “The Lifespan of a Fact,” by Jim Fingal and John D’Agata, examines what happens when facts might not lead to the truth. It is directed by Michael Lanzilotta and will run Aug. 22-25 and Aug. 29 through Sept. 1.
Lanzilotta described the play as “a hilarious examination of the fact that facts, cold facts, may not always lead to the hard truth.”
2024 season tickets will go on sale Jan. 1. They can be found at HighlandsCashiersPlayers.com.
Come together
Next year’s season aims to provide some relief, particularly comedic, for the community.
“I think we have selected some accessible pieces that are going to be a delight, not a huge challenge for our audiences, but they have some poignancy as well,” Ewing said. “We’re doing things that touch the heart, open the soul, and give a little laugh.”
Lanzilotta followed that by saying the mostly comedic season should be more palatable, which Highlands-Cashiers Players hopes will help more people re-engage with the arts.
Not all of the shows are purely comedic. “Love Letters,” for instance, holds a bit more of an emotional catharsis. The directors of next year’s season said the real power of performing arts is in the ability to bring an audience together and emotionally move them.
“The wonderful thing about theatre, community theatre especially, is you’ve got people from a variety of backgrounds who probably wouldn’t socialize otherwise getting together to achieve a pretty worthy goal,” Tuttle said.
Ewing followed, saying the power of arts lies in moving the audience, but even beyond that.
“What theatre does is give us an opportunity to come together and have a shared spiritual experience,” Ewing said.
Highlands-Cashiers Players aims to break even, not make a profit. For this, they rely on community donations to keep the arts thriving. Ways to support, along with additional information, can be found at HighlandsCashiersPlayers.com.