She became involved with the community theater in 1969, at the age of 23.Ĭast members of Perfect Wedding rehearsed in the building almost every weeknight last spring. This passionate sentiment is what drives those involved with VLT’s shows, including Perfect Wedding director Karen Scheeland, who has served as board president both in the ’80s and now. VLT’s website says of the theater company’s founding: “One person said to the others, ‘There are hundreds of little theatre groups up and down the country, but this is certainly going to be a very little one!’” Influenced by European art houses, scores of small amateur theaters popped up around the United States and Canada to present experimental fare that couldn’t find a home in the commercialism of Broadway The VLT was founded in 1929 by eight local theater lovers as part of the Little Theatre Movement, which swept North America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A card on the board reads, “Community Theatre is Alive and Well!!” In a hall parallel to the two performance spaces, a framed poster board features pictures of other “little theaters” in small towns across the country.
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It also features costumes and a glass case full of trinkets related to the theater’s current show. The lobby is covered in posters from past shows such as My Fair Lady and Death of a Salesman. With two performance spaces - the smaller studio Stage Left and the 220-seat Mainstage - the VLT produces a range of plays and musicals throughout the year.
Venture a short drive out of town and you’ve got Cottage Theatre in Cottage Grove.įor a place that calls itself “very little,” VLT’s building, a charmingly antique wooden Quonset hut at 23rd Avenue and Hilyard Street, is bigger than it seems from outside.
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VLT may be Eugene’s oldest theater, but it’s just one of a tidal wave of performing groups in town.īesides VLT, Oregon Contemporary Theatre leads a local scene that includes The Shedd Theatricals, Actors Cabaret of Eugene, Radio Redux, Free Shakespeare in the Park, Roving Park Players, Not Ready for Retirement Players and No Shame Theatre, as well as theater departments at the University of Oregon, Lane Community College and a handful of private colleges here. The show these hopefuls are auditioning for is British playwright Robin Hawdon’s Perfect Wedding, the penultimate show in the theater’s 2016-2017 season.Īs Eugene’s theater scene grows and matures, the role of community theater has become even more vital, both as a training ground for actors and technicians and as a vehicle for audience development. This is audition day at one of the oldest community theaters in the country - and hearts are racing. The theater itself is dark like the interior of a ship’s wooden hull, but the stage lights are shining on a set. Hopeful actors sit inside the building, tapping their feet and talking in quiet whispers. It’s 10 in the morning on a Saturday last spring, and Very Little Theatre has its doors wide open.
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