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(upbeat music) - At the beginning of the new century, volunteers in Rock Springs founded Actors' Mission, a community theater group dedicated to producing plays that normally wouldn't be seen in a small city in Wyoming.

20 years and 80 plays later, Actors' Mission is still going strong, always guided by its community minded motto, feed the body and nourish the mind.

We'll meet the people of Actors' Mission.

I'm Steve Peck of Wyoming PBS, and this is "Wyoming Chronicle."

- [Announcer] Funding for this program is made possible in part by the Wyoming Humanities Council, helping Wyoming take a closer look at life through the humanities.

Thinkwy.org.

And by the members of the WyomingPBS Foundation.

Thank you for your support.

- You've been at this a while with the Actors' Mission, what got you interested in it?

- Within two productions in college, had never, I played pit orchestra for some musicals, but I had never done any acting before.

Never really wanted to.

- So originally I was working on the play, working on set, costumes, a lot of behind the scenes stuff.

And then we had somebody out due to COVID.

And unfortunately, needed to cover for her.

So last week we found out we needed another person, so I've been trying to get off book in a week and ready to go for the show.

- I was in theater in Rock Springs back in the day when I was a kid.

I was like Sancho in "Man of La Mancha" and stuff like that.

And so I was looking for something.

- It's been interesting.

I've acted before, but it's been something like 25 years.

So picking it back up on the fly, under pressure has been, it's been a good time.

- So you didn't necessarily get involved with Actors' Mission because of your yearning to be back on stage?

- No, no, I have actively avoided being back on stage.

I very much wanted to work with a group, but I was very happy to work behind the scenes, to be part of, you know, to be part of the crew, to be just involved with the organization.

And guess fate had other plans.

- An independent theater company that isn't part of, isn't a private business.

That isn't in a big city.

That isn't part of a college, or university, or a school district, is difficult enough to do in a big metropolitan area.

And that's not what we have here.

How did this start?

- I had this friend at the college.

I took a class that he taught, and his name was Jeff Peterson.

And he started the group Actors' Mission, but he kind of envisioned it as a, a retake of the old depression era idea of artists spreading out into the world at large and spreading their craft.

We try to put on classics.

We try to put on classic theaters.

We try to put on plays by local writers.

We've done about six or seven of those.

- Our interview with Dave Gutierrez referred to local playwrights who are sprinkled among the assortment of dozens of plays that Actors' Mission has produced.

And you're one of those playwrights, tell us what your play was and what it was about.

- It was called "A Reason," and it was about mental, the lack of mental health in the prison systems.

- And you found a way to write that so it could be produced as a form of entertainment.

- Yeah, I started it as a screenplay, and then when I started talking with some of the Actors' Mission members, they asked if I could possibly put it into a play.

So I did it, and it was absolutely a phenomenal experience for them to take me in and kind of walk me through it and allow me to have a dream come true.

- Being a smaller community theater, we really do wear a lot of different hats, but whoever directs one of our shows, who kind of responsible for making sure that show gets there.

I've got more of a background in set design and that sort of thing.

So on this show, besides directing it, I've been designing the sound, and the set, and some of those technical aspects.

- Like most things, it starts as an idea of the WPA projects, way back when, to actually feed people and provide them entertainment.

- I just kind of, you know, I got a little, I guess bored, wanted something creative to do and happened to catch an ad for Actors' Mission.

It was an original production that they performed over at the Depot.

So I thought, "Hmm, open auditions.

I've done theater before, I could go check that out."

- No, I'm a mental health therapist, and so I wanted to try to educate people about the prison systems, and the lack of mental health in 'em.

And I got a book and started writing, and then ended up with these people, and it became a reality.

- We've kind of had some struggles with COVID.

We had planned this show prior to COVID hitting.

And then when COVID hit, we kind of had to sideline it.

Now we like to let the community pick our plays.

And so every year we have a reader's committee, and anybody in the community can join the readers committee.

There we read scripts, and we make some suggestions and put it forward.

Well, another play had been slotted for our last show this season, and that had to cancel for a few reasons.

So we knew we had this one on the back burner.

- [Steve] I see.

We went ahead and pulled that.

And then most of our other directors had already directed a show recently.

So I was planning to direct next season.

And I said, "Eh, I'll jump in and take care of this one."

- How is it?

How have you kept it working for what is now your 20th season?

- There are certain shows that the college and the high schools do really well.

The musicals, they have lots of people.

Lots of talented kids.

Lots of labor to build the sets and money to pay the royalties.

There are a lot of other theater pieces as well that aren't done that are just wonderful pieces, classics, contemporary pieces, comedies that are just straight plays that aren't generally done in Rock Springs, or in a lot of places.

Generally, when you find a smaller theater, that's where they're doing their part, is bringing you the rest of theater, you know, as opposed to just the big flashy productions.

Which are the off Broadway, "Oh my God.

I saw that play last night.

It was so good, you gotta go."

And it's like, oh, but there was no singing, no dancing.

No, but you gotta go.

So we fill that niche.

- We also like to perform shows that have some sort of message.

You know, there's nothing wrong at all with say frivolous performances, but we like to pick scripts that really do have some sort of themes.

So that you'll go home with something to think about.

- We try to put on plays that have some kind of Western, or regional, or local connection.

So we put on plays that were recently in New York stages, and, or written by playwrights who are alive and writing plays in America today.

- Sometimes it's rougher subjects than people, it's adult themes.

It's things that people aren't used to seeing at high schools or colleges.

So.

- And we try to put on cutting edge stuff that you typically wouldn't see in Wyoming, let alone Rock Springs.

- I hope that someday that the play will help educate people.

- [Steve] These conditions you describe, and this remedies you're hoping for, you feel that a community arts project can be an effective way to address it?

- Yeah.

It was amazing the feedback that we got back from it.

- Have you noticed an improvement or progress in your own work based on the play?

- I guess I feel really happy that people were open to it and that they said they had no idea.

And so, yeah, I think that not so much in my work, but in the community education, I think it did exactly what I planned on it doing.

- [Steve] Begins with awareness.

- Yeah.

With community awareness.

- [Steve] You're the director of the current production at Actor's Mission.

What's the name of the play?

- Oh, "The Sweet Delilah Swim Club."

- [Steve] "The Sweet Delilah Swim Club."

Tell us about it.

- Yes.

It's a show about these five ladies who met on a college swim team.

And they have a tradition of getting together once a year at this cabin named Sweet Delilah that's on the coast of North Carolina.

What they do that weekend is they touch up on the big changes in their lives.

So, you know, who's got married, who's got divorced, who's had a baby, that sort of thing.

It's really a lighthearted comedy, but it does have some serious elements towards the end.

For me, the central message is friendship, and how we really need the support of others in our lives to get through life.

- [Steve] You wish you had your million dollar annual benefactor, but I know you don't.

- [Steve] How do you piece together the resources to do even what you're doing here?

- Well, grants.

We, the Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund is wonderful.

We love those people.

They're one of the only groups that actually gives money for brick and mortar grants, which we need building the new theater.

- We're just in this theater temporarily, kind of borrowing their space, 'cause we're building a new building.

We have our own building that was donated to us.

It's a great old historic building right across from the train Depot.

- We were in the Elks for a long time.

And when that closed down... - And just for the record, you said the Elks Club, right?

- Yeah.

And that closed down.

So we had to find a new home, and we had a building donated to us.

So, but we have a lot of work to do to get that up to code and build, work it into a theater if it's gonna be our permanent space.

And so working with the architects and everything else that, it ends up costing a lot of money.

I know more about contracts and contractors and things that I never thought I would going to theater school.

But we're doing what we need to do to get into our own space.

So we have the Broadway Theater where we can produce our shows.

- [Steve] That's where we are now.

- Yes.

And keep our name out there while we're working on our show.

- Now from being in the Broadway Theater I gathered that at one time it was a movie theater for, in Rock Springs?

- This was the old Rock theater.

- [Steve] I see.

- Yes.

Years ago I remember seeing like "Planet of the Apes" here when I was just a kid.

- We're excited about it because the makeshift theater we built was in the Elks.

- [Steve] Yes.

- And it was our kind of theater.

It was small.

Our audiences usually get 40, 50, and we usually wanna play three nights, two weekends, three nights, six nights, two weekends.

- [Steve] And two weekends.

- And so that stage was perfect for us.

We had total control over it.

It was kind of, we could do surround, we could do all sorts of things.

So that's the kind of stage that we want to build, a black box theater.

That is the kind of thing you would run into in a city like Denver.

You know, where if you go to a certain part of town, there's a theater there and there's like players and actors and they tend to put on our kind of stuff, but we're doing it, not in a city, but in Rock Springs.

- [Steve] In Rock Springs, Wyoming.

- That's right.

- Speaking of different hats, you're nice enough to give me this Actors' Mission cap.

It has a slogan, feed the body, nourish the mind, it says.

What does that slogan mean to you and to Actors' Mission?

- One of the founding principles of our theater is that we like to provide for the community, both physical nourishment.

And so if you're hungry, you can come to one of our shows.

You don't even have to stay for the show.

We'll have a meal out there for you.

Anytime the marquee says we have a show, come on in, get something to eat.

- We have provided free meals and they've gotten more and more elaborate.

You know, we used to do like bean soup with, it had like four beans in it, and that great big tub of it's not really butter, it's not really margarine, it's like colored lard or whatever, you know, that horrible stuff.

- [Steve] Mm, mm.

Good.

- Mm, hmm.

And now we're like, do you have anything gluten free?

And we're like, yes, yes we do.

- We don't expect people to come for the sheer enjoyment of theater, we want to teach them something also.

And as a carrot and a stick, bring them in with food.

So, you know, you teach and you nourish at the same time, the mind and the body.

So that was the original idea with the original founders.

And when we started growing, we realized that a lot of the shows that were of that time area dealt with a lot of dark themes and drunk people.

So you can only, you can only go so far with that.

So we reimagined and retooled and said, what would we like to see?

And where do we fit in Rock Springs?

- Well, we serve a meal, a free meal at every single performance.

- [Steve] Really?

- We charge no admittance.

It's absolutely free.

We're funded through Sweetwater BOCES, and grants, and by the donations of our patrons.

And I just like all of those characteristics.

- It's all volunteer.

That's one of the things, we don't charge for admission.

We feed the people, nobody gets paid.

It's all for the love of theater.

And for the art.

- I think we both have observed many, many useful, valuable, treasured community enterprises that started out well, but haven't lasted for 20 years for whatever reason.

What's been the secret?

- We have a lot of cast people that come in, there's always interest in being on stage.

People want to try it or they love doing it.

They come in, they go out, there's a turnover rate of people that want to, they want to be a part of our production.

So we see a lot of people that come in, they do a great job and then they're gone.

Then we see some people that come in and they become a part of the Actors' Mission, which we're always, we love, you know, they want to be a part of us and they stick around.

And we've seen so many people come and go, hundreds of people in casts and crews come and go.

And many of them go on to work in theater, and go further in their endeavors in trying to act.

- And others don't.

- Others, they got exactly what they wanted, a chance to be on the stage.

And they had a lot of fun, and enjoyed themselves, and lots of great pictures and memories.

- [Steve] Exactly.

So it's, you know, it's, there's something for everybody in it.

- [Steve] What do you do when you're not volunteering for Actors' Mission?

- Primarily I'm a college professor.

- I see.

At Western?

- [Heather] At Western Wyoming Community College.

- What's your field?

- I'm an English professor.

I am currently teaching, while doing this, teaching two sections of composition and another section of film.

So I'm keeping a little busy.

- Where'd you go to college?

- I'm a native Ohioan.

So Kent State University's my undergrad.

And then University of Dayton and Bowling Green for my PhD.

- [Steve] Really?

PhD in?

- PhD in rhetoric and writing.

- My, I guess my niche is I'm kind of a court composer.

So if they need, you know, 1940s Hungarian jazz for "Parfumerie" I would go create that and bring it back.

Yeah.

- [Steve] How many plays have you created music for?

- Probably upwards of like 75 compositions just for the theater.

- [Steve] So a musical background, clearly.

- Mm, hmm.

Yep, yep.

My degrees in musical, in music education.

Yeah.

- [Steve] Where'd you get that degree?

- Rocky Mountain College in Montana.

- [Steve] You mentioned you'd had some theater training.

You also told me that you worked for many years for Club Med, is that right?

- Yeah.

- [Steve] Was that in theater?

- Yeah.

- [Steve] It was.

- Yeah.

I did lighting design for live shows.

We did different shows every single night in, in all over the world.

So yeah, that was a lot of fun.

I really wanted to scuba dive.

And I was in New York.

So scuba diving in the Hudson River really wasn't my goal.

So that was my second option.

And I had the skills.

So I said, hey, pick me.

- And you learned useful tricks of the trade, and producing a show in a hurry, in a different place, in a short period of time that I know you're putting to use here.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

We, you come up with all sorts of shortcuts and ways that you can make things work that don't have to be gigantic pieces of art.

That they look really good and they work really well for the stage.

When you have a small space or you're working with a small budget, there's amazing things you can do.

- [Steve] There's always a way.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

(Brad laughs) It's true.

It may not be the way you expected, and it may take 14 tries, but you'll get there.

- [Steve] You'll get there.

(Brad chuckles) - When I got the part and we were getting ready to, you know, bring it to production, I was appalled to learn that I had to provide my own costume.

I'm like, excuse me?

Where am I supposed to come up with this costume?

- [Steve] What was the costume?

- It was just, I played a marm.

I played a marm.

I played a spinster.

I just needed like a 1940s kind of dress.

- [Steve] You found a way.

- I did, but I just had no idea that that's what community theater was like.

Where you, you did for yourself, you had to do everything.

You had to wear all the different hats.

- Jeff had an interest in depression era plays, depression era themes, working class themes.

And so I like that concept.

- And to you that dovetails nicely with what you see as sort of the Rock Springs.

- [Dave] Take.

- Take on things as well.

What do you mean by that?

- Well, I just, I feel sometimes that Rock Springs is underrated as a cultural center.

And I think that people in state really don't understand the creative dynamic here.

- It's a good center point for the downtown area when you're revitalizing your downtown.

Theater is where you find it.

You know, if you're gonna go to see a movie or something, you go out to the mall or you go someplace else.

But when you go downtown, you expect restaurants and theaters.

So our theater is just around the corner from here, and it will be a really great area for culture and arts to come downtown and have that.

- I really think there's so much history out here of different cultural influences, of creativity coming from different areas, and I love the way that more and more I've been seeing the town try to embrace that, and grow it, and not only sustain it, but just build on what they've got, which I think is just, it's a tremendous treasure.

- There's a bunch of individual, individually creative people here in our community, and always have been.

But because we live at desert, we don't have mountains right in the town.

We don't have pine trees.

We have sagebrush.

And people drive through on I-80 and they get a kind of I-80 view of the terrain.

Actually, the terrain is fantastic, as beautiful as it comes, but it's desert.

So when I, I went to high school in Wyoming, and so we'd go places.

And I always felt like we got the short shake.

They didn't think we were quite cool enough.

Sometimes they suspected us on a certain level.

And so I thought it was wrong then.

And that's what I liked about it.

I liked the fact that Actors' Mission is its own thing with its own traditions.

And it's kind of old time Rock Springs.

- How many productions would you do in a typical year?

- Typically we perform four.

- We've come up with our season and it's, there's some really, really good shows.

- We may try some other things.

For example, we did a summer fundraiser last summer.

We, what else?

We're discussing doing a 24 hour play in August, which is kind of a frightening concept, but the idea is that you assemble a group of people and within 24 hours you write a play, you rehearse it, you put everything together and then put on that show.

So you'd get together at 7:00 PM with a group of people, and by 7:00 PM the next day you're putting on a show.

- It's an illustration of the flexibility that you've got.

- [Shane] Yes.

- To do something like that when another theater company just wouldn't dare try it.

- Yes.

Yes.

And that's where we're really fortunate is that, you know, any member of our community can say, hey, I have this idea, and pitch it to us, you know?

And sure, we'd love to put on some different ideas.

- 2022 is something of a milestone year for Actors' Mission.

- This is our 20th anniversary.

And it's a big deal.

I can't tell you how keeping a theater company in a small town like Rock Springs, 20,000 people, plus, it takes a lot of work to keep something alive that long, and, you know, a dying art, supposedly.

- I know because the dollars are tight and it's volunteer work, you might not be able to predict exactly.

What's your best case, your best hope for occupying your new theater, your own building?

- I would love to be in that space in the next five years.

If we can do it, you know, the prices of lumber, the prices of contracting work, the prices of everything is going up exponentially now.

- [Steve] Sure.

Because of COVID, because of the lack of availability of, I mean, everybody's been finding no we're outta stock in this, we can't get that in.

So every, all the prices go up.

So the original costs that we had estimated are about twice what we had expected.

And we got a lot of older people that have been working really hard with us to raise money and they're tired.

They want, they wanna see the theater open.

And so do we, but we have to do it right.

And it will get done eventually.

I'll be a very old man, but it will be done.

And we'll finally have our own space.

And then we can rent it out to smaller groups or, you know, we have a big venue like this, which is wonderful.

Some people don't need to be in a space like this.

They just want an acoustic place with maybe 90 seats for an audience or something.

So when we're not doing productions, we can rent that out as well.

We've got the rest of the building also that we're looking at other plans for as far as how to utilize that area for the arts.

- Now you've remained involved with Actors' Mission.

- I love 'em.

- [Steve] What's your role now?

- I'm behind the scenes painting, doing things that are not on stage.

- [Steve] And you're on the equivalent of the board of directors.

- Well, the, yeah, executive directors.

- [Steve] Executive directors.

- I kind of help put together some of the fundraisers and do the cleanup afterwards.

Behind the scenes stuff.

- When I found out that we were providing food for people and we didn't charge, I was like, what kind of outfit is this?

- [Steve] What kind of outfit is it?

- Oh man.

It is just, it's such a unique, a unique treasure.

- We really do feel like there's a place for anyone in our community within this theater.

If you don't like to act, we always need people on sets, or up in the sound booth, or helping us do our fundraisers or promotions.

So we strive to be that theater for the community.

- [Steve] You have in mind to do more writing?

- I do.

(laughs) - [Steve] And you can... - Yeah.

I'd like to do a sequel to this, - [Steve] Really?

to the "A Reason."

Yeah.

- All in all it's been worthwhile.

It really has been.

20 years is a good chunk of time.

And I hope that it will continue on, and it becomes a staple and it will be a mission to keep the mission alive, you know?

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Funding for this program is made possible in part by the Wyoming Humanities Council, helping Wyoming take a closer look at life through the humanities.

Thinkwy.org.

And by the members of the WyomingPBS Foundation.

Thank you for your support.