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2010 Season |
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In 1998 a very dear friend of mine took
my children and I to see A Christmas Carol live on stage
in Atlanta. I have always been a fan of that Charles Dickens work, but
until I saw it live on stage it never really came to life. I was touched
by it in a way I never had been before. After seeing the production, I
read the book for the first time. I knew, then, that we could bring this
wonderful story to the people of Nashville and give them a chance to
experience the impact of a live stage production of that classic
Christmas story. The Community of Christ was just
finishing their new multipurpose building, and even back in the planning
stages, I had advocated the facility be used to produce quality family
oriented community theater. We started in 1999 with an idea to present
this story to the community as a gift. As the sets kept getting bigger
and bigger each week as they were being built, Cherry Koehler, pastor at
the time, was feeling concerned. She later said; "If I had known what
David had in mind at the time, I would never have given the go ahead to
do it. I thought it was going to be a few people reading with cardboard
sets" But she and the rest of the congregation were pleased and
surprised that a rag tag little group could do something of such
quality, simply because we determined that we would stretch ourselves
beyond our comfort zone and try something that seemed beyond our reach.
It was decided that A Christmas Carol would become and
annual event. |
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Moving into the next year we realized
that we needed something special for the Easter season and From
the Garden to the Grave was born. A story told in scripture, song
and drama retelling the final hours in the life of Jesus. From 1999
until around June of 2003 that was all we did each year. Then along came
the idea of doing a summer dinner theater in August, and the first one
produced was Fools (A Comic Fable by Neil Simon). Again
the positive response was overwhelming. It was during the production of Fools that we began to call ourselves Community
Players for the first time. By this time more of the community
at large was beginning to become involved with our productions and we
recognized the need to secure financial and human support from outside
the Community of Christ, and we began to investigate
incorporation as a separate non-profit organization, in 2004 we did just
that. Our ties remain strong to the Community of Christ as
our parent organization, and our goals and objectives have not changed
from what they were in the very beginning. We tried to embody those
goals and objectivities in our mission statement: “Presenting
“Family Friendly” theater that will inspire, entertain and strives
always to exceed expectations.” Our goal is to enrich the lives
of the people we encounter as patrons and participants in our
productions and build relationships with those we work with. Since we
incorporated, we have built even stronger relationships within the
community. Community Players has become a place where
people who live in the community have met each other for the first time
and made a friend or two in the process. I think that is a worth while
endeavor, bringing communities together. |
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