COLUMBIA — This was a solid year for local theater, with most groups doing what they do best.
But is that always the best choice, or just the safest?
Do perennial crowd-pleasers always align with the loftiest creative and artistic goals?
Will the shows that attract the best talent also fill the most seats with patrons, and vice-versa?
Does a sold-out run indicate a satisfied and supportive membership, or negate the chance for outreach to newcomers and visitors to town?
Is a well-funded media blitz — or a slick press release that promises life-changing thematic content and performances that set new standards and forge new artistic territory — any guarantee of actual value in the material, or that audiences will enjoy the show?
Photographs for the Trustus Theatre production of Sweeney Todd
As these and other questions became hot discussion topics, performers focused on turning out good work in 2023.
For the Midlands’ — and indeed the nation’s — longest-running community theater group, Town Theatre, that meant mainly family friendly musicals with name recognition, from “The Sound of Music” and “The Wizard of Oz” to “Grease” and “White Christmas.” Still, the 104-year-old venue’s considerable resources can delight and amaze when turned towards a straight show, such as January’s “The Play That Goes Wrong,” a dazzling display of intentionally disastrous technical malfunctions, missed cues and broad slapstick.
Workshop Theatre, now comfortably settled into Columbia College’s Cottingham Theatre, continued its dual goal of showcasing the work of both veteran and newer directors, and presenting an eclectic mix of material. Important classics like “A Chorus Line,” “Torch Song” and “The Glass Menagerie” alternated with lesser-known, yet still important, properties such as “Hundred Days” and “A New Brain,” resulting in a richly diverse year. The big-name shows usually generated decent attendance, but more theater-goers ought to realize how convenient Cottingham is for most of the city. One also longs for the festive post-show jollity that so often arose in the courtyard at Workshop’s former home on Bull Street. There’s plenty of room for that at Cottingham — just saying.
"Anne of Green Gables" at Village Square Theatre
Trustus Theatre also followed what has been a successful model, with guaranteed, if mainstream, audience-pleasers including “Little Shop of Horrors,” “Sweeney Todd” and “The Great American Trailer Park Christmas Musical” — yes, that last one was a guaranteed hit, selling out before opening night — generating sufficient revenue in the summer and fall to enable deeper, darker and more risky programming in the winter and spring. That latter category included “Mr. Burns: A Post-Electric Play," a mind-bending, post-apocalyptic satire of pop culture’s potential influence on society, using “The Simpsons” as a blueprint. “The Mad Ones” was a musical celebration of self-discovery and post-modern girl power. “Fairview," a Pulitzer-winner that challenged both cast and audience to rethink how we think of race in America also premiered. And, “Down in the Holler,” an original work that combined surreal storytelling with a meditation on the ghosts of past romances, was the most compelling of recent Playwrights’ Festival winners that I can recall.
Chapin Theatre Company moved into a long-awaited new home; fall productions of a ten-minute play festival comprised of all original pieces, and the premiere of “Stilt Girl,” the latest comedy from local playwright Lou Clyde, signified the group’s continuing commitment to fostering new work. The latest summer musical extravaganza, “Disney's Descendants,” likewise signified their strong commitment to youth programs.
Lexington’s Village Square Theatre, another “little theater that can,” continued to dream big, presenting huge — and slightly naughty — Broadway musicals such as “Young Frankenstein” and “The Addams Family,” as well as stage versions of venerable family classics such as “Anne of Green Gables” and “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.”
Columbia Children’s Theatre also moved from the spectral remains of Richland Mall into new digs at the Brookland Lakeview Empowerment Center in West Columbia. Their model has changed drastically, with large-scale performances in an everchanging lineup of venues around town, augmented by enough classes and outreach programs to rival an actual performing arts school.
The University of South Carolina’s Theatre program continued to impress with the technical wizardry and visual proficiency of its graduate design students, and the precocious skills of its undergraduate actors. Yet their output seemed somehow diminished. Smaller casts, fewer shows, a double dose of 10-minute play festivals, a play aimed at younger audiences, visiting artists and performers from the local theater community and newer, lesser-known material that may or may not ever make its way into a textbook defined the school's year. Time will tell if this marks the start of a successful new gameplan, or simply an atypical year.
Scenes from "The End of the Line," the first production from Eastmont Theatre, a DIY troupe working to write, produce and premiere original works without traditional venue support.
Smaller, indie and nomadic groups such as the NiA Company, Walking on Water (WOW) Productions, Broadway Bound’s Vista Theatre Project and a new group called Eastmont Theatre continued to pop up everywhere from borrowed auditoriums to ad-hoc backyard stages.
To the northeast, the Arts Center of Kershaw County maintained a vital theatrical presence in the Midlands.
One writer can’t see every show, especially when more than ever premiered this past year. Many seemed to run simultaneously or for limited time periods. Accordingly, I probably saw fewer shows in 2023 than any time in the last 15 years. Still, these were just a few of my personal favorites:
Best Revival of a Modern Classic: “Torch Song” — Workshop Theatre.
Best Revival of a Pre-1950 Classic: “The Glass Menagerie” — Workshop Theatre.
Best Revival of a Pre-1650 Classic: “Much Ado About Nothing,” SC Shakespeare Company.
Best-Produced (If Unnecessary) Revival: the dueling productions of “Little Shop of Horrors” at USC and Trustus; I thoroughly enjoyed both — but that “feed me” might have been coming from audiences hungry for something new.
Best Performer: Free Times readers nailed it when they voted Katie Mixon “Best Local Actress” this year. A longtime portrayer of corseted ingenues and classical heroines, Mixon created unique spins on the customary types with which she’s often associated, at four different theaters. In “The Play That Goes Wrong,” she parodied the stock diva of drawing room murder mysteries; in “Much Ado,” she reinvented Beatrice as a quirky, caustic, self—assured feminist; in “Glass Menagerie” she redefined Amanda Wingfield’s flamboyance, manipulation, and self—deception; in “Fairview,” she boldly explored issues of race, privilege, and paternalism.
