STUDENTS SPEND FOR COMMUNITY SUMMER THEATRE WORDS Abigail Cooper I I PHOTO Steve Frye SETTING THE For the past 35 years, Harding's Theatre Department has coordinated and hosted Searcy Summer Dinner Theatre (SSDT), a community theatre program. In summer 2017, the theatre presented three different shows based on "Marital fesses." The season included "Til Beth Do Us Part," "The Father of the Bride" and "Steel Magnolias." Dr. Steve Frye, producer and chair of the theatre department, designed the season. He had 30 to 45 acting and tech roles available for srudents and community members throughout the summer. Seven srudents worked all summer while the others worked for parts of the summer. enior drama and speech (licensure) major Kara Treadwell and sophomore theatre major Abigail ustin were two of the seven Harding rodents who worked full time. This was Treadwell's third summer working for SDT and her second year as house manager, but it was ustin's fir t year working as stage manager. "I knew I was going to get pretty close to a traditional summer experience but with the people I already knew and trusted, and they knew and trusted me," ustin said. "l went from very minimal stage management knowledge to [being able to] stage manage [a] show." ccording to both Frye and Treadwell, S DT was the perfect place for theatre students to start working in tech crew, box office, house management and stage management. " ome internships won't let you [work) for them unles you've already had another internship, and this is considered profe sional-level work," Treadwell said. "It's kind of like our own built-in professional job springboard for technical workers." The professional standards the students achieved during the summer did not go unnoticed. ~ ven at the beginning of the summer, season ticket holders filled up the shows. DT gained traction as people heard about how well the shows performed, and people would try o buy last-minute tickets. Treadwell said their audience numbers grew every year, and every show was sold out last summer. "There's almost a family relationship between the [audience) and the dinner theatre," ustin said. "People enjoy seeing it every year and seeing what we create." They performed 21 time during the previous summer with more than 100 audience members each time. There were about 2,000 patron last summer, a group made up of locals as well as people from out of state. Many of the audience members loyally returned to see the new productions every year. 'We have a variety of audience with different backgrounds and job responsibilities," Frye said. ''\; e have blue collar workers, white collar workers, teachers, doctors, and lawyers. We're trying to build bridges, not walls." I Searcy local Karen Alford, alumnas Hannah Reimert and Dustyn Stokes and Searcy local Hillary Polston play their parts 1n "Steel Magnolias" at the Ulrey Performing Arts Center on Aug. 23, 2017, during Searcy Summer Dinner Theatre. The production was about six women who congregate in a beauty shop to share gossip. // Photo courtesy of Steve Frye SCENE 0 IJ )> ~ )>
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