Community Theater History

I. Introduction Community theater is a form of theater production that consists of affiliates from a certain group (or community) joining hands together to create a performance that will directly influence the stakeholders of the production (Unglebower, 2011). Thus, it is used as a bridge to disseminate social issues a certain community is facing and to open the eyes of every member of the said group of people about their role as a citizen of their nation and this world.

II. History of Community Theater According to Woods (2006), since the Spaniards came to the Philippines, the concept of community theater in the Philippines began. The religious traditions such as rituals, songs, and dances were not addressed as theatrical behaviors until

From the traditional rituals, songs, and dances of the community, the purpose of the production turned out to be for entertainment and for communicating the social problem the community is facing at a certain point of time.

III. People Involved in Community Theater

In a Community Theater production, there are people involved such as the author, the audience, and the actor.

Guthrie (1995), a renowned personality in the field of theater arts in Europe, wrote in an article that, whatever the author writes as a script, should be enacted by the actor and by that the context of the piece made by the writer will be passed through the audience. Therefore, it is the audience’s responsibility to absorb the message aimed to propagate by the play; and it is seen through their reactions—may be a sentiment of satisfaction or dissatisfaction.

Moreover, the audience serves as the central basis of the director on how he or she will manipulate and innovate the production through different elements—sounds, set design, costume and make-up, and the actors. After all, the focal drive of the play is to steal the interest people and to enlighten them about the whole importance of the piece