The Taffetas -- SCT puts Community in Community Theatre

Creating a sustainable community through faith, art and love for one another is what this blog is all about.

Spencer and the whole Lakes region is so fortunate to have talented artists living and working all around us. The dedication of the people who not only bring great arts events to the area but perhaps more importantly create art right here with our homegrown talent is phenomenal and has been a true blessing to my family since we moved here from Sioux City in 2006.

I've procrastinated in becoming involved in the Spencer Community Theatre because I felt I didn't have time. However, in a way that's naval gazing at its worst, I became involved because I wanted to understand how theatres work as my own writing moved from fiction to drama. More than writing a script of imagination and high literary quality, I want to write something that will come alive on the stage.

Also, with two of three children likely wanting their own undergraduate tuition in the next five years, I don't feel I have the luxury of pursuing an MFA in theatre or creative writing at this point, so if I want the learning experiences, I'll have to create my own.

Happily, I've moved to a great center of creativity.

The Taffetas premiered off broadway in 1994, about the time I was finishing my B.A. in Creative Writing. As a subscriber to Variety and The New Yorker, I'd heard all the buzz, but had never seen it.

Steering the time machine back to 2009, I signed on to be in the crew for The Taffetas at SCT and learned at a production meeting that they were looking for a keyboard player.

I have the skills, or so I thought. I played jazz for a state championship team in high school (in nineteen cough cough) and for the jazz ensemble at my university (before the Taffetas was ever on stage).

It's proven to be a greater challenge than I ever imagined, but as the show comes together -- with the amazing cast of Jean Johnson, Nicole Stauffer, Jill Barr and Barb Larson; Bonnie Dalager as director, Amy Knoup as musical director, and Emily Blok, Jerry Jones and Jim Rusk compensating for my piano playing in the wildly entertaining on-stage band; Kim Steffen, who choreographed the show, and an amazing crew__ that makes us all look and sound fantastic -- I realize that rising to a major challenge in collaborative art is not so different from rising to a major economic challenge in collaborative community.

Much as I'd love to say the current economic climate in our nation was caused by one person (cough Bush cough) I freely admit that he could not have spent one penny without the approval of Congress. I even admit that there are other factors out of the control of any government and that consumers, in many cases, must be accountable for their own decisions and actions.

The situation is what it is. Our time machine won't take us back to 1956 or even to 2000. Being a part of The Taffetas allowed me to arpeggio outside my comfort zone for a few weeks, practicing over and over at home until I got a song right and making choices about my time that would best serve the show.

The effort will serve only to the end of this month when The Taffetas closes if the life lessons of theatre don't get an encore.

What if Shakespeare (who did not write The Taffetas -- just to be clear) was right when he said, "All the world is a stage and the men and ladies merely players" ?

What can each one of us bring to the show? Do you have a skill that was great in the day but hasn't seen the light in any major way since nineteen cough cough? Is there something you have to offer the community whose time you thought had passed? Is there something new you have the capacity to learn that would serve those around you?

The stimulus bill may have passed but that doesn't mean any community is out of the woods economically yet. This might be a long road filled with many tough choices. Funding cuts could threaten the arts and other quality of life institutions in Spencer, just as economic blows have cost hundreds of jobs.

No bailout is likely to cause any real, positive change for us locally. We must compose our own song, create our own dance, find our own audience and write our own script. If we could come together, not as a government body but as just we the people -- each actor, singer, crew member, and director bringing unique skills to the community table, and possessing the desire to create a collaborative solution -- if we could make that work -- the eyes of the world would be on Spencer, Iowa, and our show would never close.

Come see The Taffetas. If you come and really don't like it at all, send me an email at lakewriter51340@gmail.com and I'll personally refund your $16.00. I'm sure I won't have any takers -- not even the one grumpy person around the corner.

Support the local arts and see what a collaboration of a community's talent can achieve on stage.

Then as the house lights come back on, rise to the challenge of bringing your hidden or not-so-hidden talent to renewing and sustaining our great community. How can we create jobs for the jobless, industry where it's lacking, resources where there's poverty and community where there's isolation.

Put your nickel in and hear the music, music, music.

We'll all be richer for it.