Community Theatre

Community Theatre, form of play-making which involves a mainly non-theatrical community in the production of a script usually based on a subject of local interest. It first appeared in England in the 1970s and is closely allied to political theatre, often having a socialist commitment which may extend to feminism and gay liberation, which also have their specialist groups. Community plays are given in working men's clubs, public houses, village halls, or in streets and open spaces. The first community theatre in England was Inter-Action, founded in 1968, which ran Dogg's Troupe, presenting plays for children with audience participation on housing estates, and also a Fun Art Bus for other theatrical activities. Other community theatre groups included the Covent Garden in London, the Interplay in Leeds and West Yorkshire, the Second City in Birmingham and the West Midlands, and the Solent People's Theatre in Hampshire. A form of community theatre which has no political affiliations developed later, mainly in the Dorset–Devon area under Ann Jellicoe and her successor John Oram, employing a few professional actors with hundreds of local and usually non-theatrical players in a specially written large-scale drama based on local historical, or sometimes contemporary, subjects.

In the United States of America ‘community theatre’ is largely synonymous with amateur theatre. (See also COLLECTIVE CREATION and HAPPENING.)