September Happenings

Summer is winding down, but Brunswick Little Theatre is cranking it UP this fall.
 Check out all we have going on.

This coming Saturday, September 20, we are holding auditions for our Christmas show, Best Little Christmas Pageant Ever. This show features a large, all-ages cast and is the perfect vehicle for families to get involved in a something together! The show will run December 12-14 with four performances, two evening shows at 7:30 on Friday, December 12 and Saturday, December 13 and two matinees Saturday, December 13 and Sunday, December 14 all at our new theatre at 8068 River Rd (the former Christian Alliance Church and Southport Christian School facility). Auditions will take place this coming Saturday at the new theatre on River Road with adults called from 10 am to 12 pm and children 7-15 called from 1 pm -3 pm. Details can be found on the Auditions Page of the BLT website.

The local Boy Scouts and BLT have joined together to offer a Theater Merit Badge workshop. The first session was this past Saturday with the final session on Saturday, September 27. BLT is proud to offer this opportunity and thanks Jonathan Richmond for facilitating the program.

Let's PLAY! returns this fall with a weekend workshop themed after Holidays Around The World. Let's PLAY! Children's Theatre Workshop is open to all children, no matter the level of experience, from 4-12 years old and offers a great introduction to the theatre arts for newbies and a chance for those already involved to polish skills. Registration opens at 9 am Saturday, October 11 via email to jiapalucci@ec.rr.com. A word of warning, these workshops are limited to 24 students and fill up VERY QUICKLY. Details on Let's PLAY! as well as photos from previous sessions can be found on the Let's PLAY! page of the BLT website.

Steel Magnolias comes to the Brunswick Little Theatre in just over one month! This bitter-sweet drama directed by Thom Clemmons plays on our new stage at 8068 River Road, Southport at 7:30 pm October 17, 18, 24 and 25 with two 3:00 pm Sunday matinees on October 19 and 26. Tickets are available now through our online Box Office, and they are selling quite briskly, so get yours TODAY to be sure of a seat.

On Halloween Night BLT will be joining with the City of Southport to fill the historic Garrison House at Fort Johnson with a scary, but not too frightening, collection of haunts! We will be needing volunteers to help out with this project, so stay tuned to the Facebook page, website and your inbox for details!

Fezziwig's Ball returns this Thanksgiving weekend, but with a murderous twist! Join us at the Brunswick Little Theatre, 8068 River Rd., Southport on Friday evening, November 28 or Saturday afternoon November 30 for a Fezziwig Murder Mystery Party and Children's Victorian Christmas Party. All ages will enjoy Christmas merriment and a Victorian Food Court. Details coming soon!

December will see a weekend of performances of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, December 12-14, and the Showcase performance from our Let's PLAY! children on Sunday, December 21.

Our first program of the new year will be a first for our Let's PLAY! program as we introduce our Winter Session, Let's PLAY! Presents: Winnie-The_Pooh KIDS. This 8-week workshop will begin January 4 and culminate with a weekend of performances of the children's musical Winnie-The-Pooh KIDS February 20-22, 2014 on the Main Stage of our new theatre, 8068 River Rd., Southport. Participants will enjoy all the great activities that have made Let's PLAY! so popular, but will be working toward presenting this short Disney musical instead of the traditional showcase. Registration will open Saturday, December 27 at 9 am via email to jiapalucci@ec.rr.com and is as always open to ALL children 4-12. We will be looking for older children to help in production and crew roles for this show, so stay on the look-out for details.

Look for announcements soon of our next Stagestruck Production, coming Spring of 2015, as well as a Director's Challenge for those who may want to try their hand at directing their first show.

Brunswick Little Theatre's move into our new home has brought huge opportunities but also some challenges. As we work to turn a church into a theatre, we are stretching our resources thin, both human and financial. We need our BLT family now more than ever. If you are as excited about this new place as we are, how about looking into pitching in? Contact this email address or any board member for ideas, but one immediate need is a simple one, a Cleaning Crew! We are scheduling regular cleaning of the new facility each Monday evening at 6 pm, all are welcome to come out and help with simple household maintenance.

Another way to help out YOUR community theatre is to become a Member. We have revamped our membership system and it now offers some fun perks, such as a discount on all Workshops (including Let's PLAY!) and even free tickets to shows at our new venue. Membership also entitles you to a voice in the future of Brunswick Little Theatre as members vote for the new board members in 2015. We encourage you to go look at our Membership Page on the website and consider becoming an Official, Card-Carrying Member of BLT today! 

Thank you for your support, we couldn't do any of this without YOU!!!

August Happenings

Hey, it's still August, right? Better late than never, we say!

Tomorrow marks one full month in our new home on River Road. We've been putting the space to use already!

The Let's PLAY Summer Camp spent a week of fun and learning in one of the two classroom buildings, then topped off the experience with a great Showcase in front of over 50 family and friends, the very first performance in our new theater!

Steel Magnolias, our first ticketed event in the new space, has been rehearsing on the main stage three nights a week. The show opens Friday, October 17 at 7:30 pm with additional evening shows on the 18th, 24th and 25th and two matinees Sunday, October 19 and Sunday, October 26 at 3:00 pm. Tickets are on sale now on our Box Office page.

The cast and crew of our summer musical Into the Woods held their cast party at the new facility last night, and had a ball. With a huge kitchen, plenty of bathrooms, a wonderful playground, shady and comfortable outdoor spaces and a big screen and projector, this space really has a lot of potential for fun, and we plan to offer lots of opportunities for you to enjoy it in the near future.

One of the first opportunities to put yourself on the new stage is our upcoming Best Christmas Pageant Ever auditions. Debbie Skillman will be directing this holiday classic and is looking for a cast of 10 adults and 17 children. Auditions will be at the new theater, 8068 River Road, Southport, on September 20, 2014. See our Audition page for all the details!

The BLT Board of Directors is working on organizing the 2015 season. They will be accepting proposals at their September11 meeting, at 6:30 pm at the Brunswick Little Theater on River Road. Potential directors will find lots useful information on our Directors Page. We will continue to perform a show in Odell each year as well as one in May at Franklin Square Park, but all our other performances will be at the new facility. The board looks forward scheduling more shows than any time in the recent past. This new space allows us, even really requires us, to produce more performances. A lot of work has gone into securing, maintaining and improving this property, all we need now is directors willing to use it. If you are contemplating a show in the Brunswick Little Theater, but haven't really gotten a good look at it yet, simply drop an email to Jeffrey at jgstites@yahoo.com and he'll see you get the grand tour. We are excited to show off our new place and see how the talented BLT family can put it to use!

We hope you all had a great, fun and safe summer and look forward to sharing an exciting future together.

The New Home of Brunwick Little Theatre

Anyone who has been involved with Brunswick Little Theatre for any length of time has probably heard the question. "So where IS Brunswick Little Theatre?" We have lately had to answer that we were a traveling company of sorts, we performed in a variety of venues. Since moving out of our home in the Centennial Center in 2004, BLT shows have been hosted in a wide range of places. Our big summer musicals have been at Odell Williamson Auditorium and our free spring shows have been performed in Franklin Square Park, but otherwise we've moved around a lot performing in the Amuzu Theatre, the Brunswick Center at Southport, Playhouse 211, even the second floor of Southport's Town Hall. Our audiences have been wonderful about following us wherever we go, but it's been a challenge finding suitable spaces and then spreading the word about where we are for each show. We'll keep performing in Odell and Franklin Square Park, but the days of moving our smaller venue shows from place to place are coming to a close.

As of August 1, 2014, Brunswick Litttle Theatre has a new home.

We signed a six-month lease with an option to renew for six more months on the former Southport Christian School/Christian Alliance Church property at 8068 SE River Road, Southport. Perhaps you recognize it, it's on your right as you travel north on Rt. 133 between Southport and Sunny Point. Keep a look out, we'll have at least a temporary sign up soon.

This property is over three acres of land with three buildings (one large building in front and two smaller two-room former classroom buildings in back), a couple of sheds, a playground and ample parking.

Classroom building from the back of the main building

Two buildings with two rooms a piece

Playground :)

Ample Parking

The main building features a large room that used to be the church sanctuary and will serve as our performance space as well as several smaller office-type rooms, a spacious lobby area, a kitchen with two stoves and two sinks and lots of cabinet space, a couple of large closets and two large and one small bathrooms.The two building out back have identical floor plans with two large rooms apiece with closet space between them, a sink in each one and four more bathrooms.

The Big Room

An Audience View :)

The Kitchen

The Lobby

One of the "classrooms" in the back buildings

It even has chalkboard for drawing blocking diagrams :)

This property screams "POSSIBILITIES!!"

The first order of business is to build our stage in time for the August 15 Let's PLAY! Showcase. That will have the side benefit of opening up the possibility for Steel Magnolias, our first show in this facility, to rehearse on their stage and set. With both the large performance space and four rooms in the buildings out back, we can now be rehearsing more than one production at a time with ease, while also providing workshops at the same time, all on one property. The main room can be used for fundraisers, parties, auditions, or any number of things. We have, thanks to the generosity and quick action of several in the BLT family, 150 very comfortable theater armchairs than can be put out and taken up as needed. We now have storage for all the things a theater needs to operate.We are very pleased.

We are also a bit overwhelmed. This is a very large property, both in acreage and interior square footage. We have lot's of bathrooms now, which is great, but they all need to be cleaned. There is mowing and sweeping and vacuuming and dusting to be done. The stage must be built and seating arranged. There is a lot of mundane upkeep required, and we will need the help and buy-in of the entire BLT family to make this work.

We also now have more regular bills than BLT is used to having, We are responsible for utilities as well as rent, and the outfitting of this space to make it what it needs to be will not come cheaply (we would really like someone to step up and sponsor a new sign for the front yard for one thing). You can help with a donation of money or time, we need it now more than ever. We hope to be hosting some fun fundraisers soon, please keep an eye out and participate when you can. Come to see our shows in the new Brunswick Little Theatre, beginning with Steel Magnolias October 17-19 and 24-26, mark your calenders now!

Another benefit of this new space, and a requirement if it is to work to its full potential, is that we can put on more shows each season than we have in the recent past. We need directors to submit proposals (the board will be reviewing proposals at its August and September meetings), and actors and tech crew to make the magic happen. And our family has to grow. We need to reach out and include more of our neighbors and friends in the joy of live community theater.

Brunswick Little Theatre is entering some exciting times. The sky is the limit. Join us, and together we'll FLY.

TAKE A COOL VIRTUAL TOUR ON OUR FACEBOOK PAGE HERE!!!!!