It began as a ragtag troupe of amateur actors and evolved into a staple of the cultural arts in Park Ridge.
For almost 25 years, the Park Ridge Players thrived where other community theater groups succumbed to rapid membership turnover, internal strife and over-ambitious talent. From Neil Simon comedies to Agatha Christie dramas, the group was known for producing some of the most reliable and worthy theater in the northwest suburbs.
But for all of their success and longevity, the Players are drawing the final curtain with one last production in the fall. Troupe members, some of whom have been with the group since it was formed in 1974, said they are simply drained from the effort of putting on two major shows each year.
“Those of us who were doing the brunt of the work are just burnt out,” Players president Mary Prindiville said. “We didn’t want to start putting on sloppy productions.”
The group is folding because organizers can’t find enough volunteers willing to do the grunt work involved in community theater: selling tickets, constructing sets, passing out fliers and other tasks.
“We kept getting these aspiring young people who didn’t want to work backstage. They wanted to be stars,” Prindiville said.
The Players evolved from an acting class offered by the Park Ridge Park District in the mid-1970s. Betty Bryant, the original acting teacher, remembers the 20 or so students as an unusually energetic bunch.
Eight of its charter members, including Prindiville and Bryant, are still with the theater company.
“I discovered I had this dedicated group,” Bryant recalled. “It was just a hobby for them, but they had a fabulous time. After two sessions, I decided we would put on plays while I taught.”
From there, the group moved from venue to venue while putting on as many as six productions a year. The Players finally landed at the historic St. Mary’s Theatre, where they turned a one-time silent movie house into a showcase for comedy and drama.
The group then decided to cut down the number of shows to two. Soon, the Players were attracting a loyal following, comprised mostly of patrons from Chicago’s Northwest Side, Park Ridge and nearby suburbs.
Sell-out crowds often reached 800 to 900 people per show–a far cry from the group’s early years, when the cast sometimes outnumbered the audience and sets were constructed from cardboard boxes. Some of the group’s latest productions cost upwards of $3,000 to stage.
And then there are the stories.
Prindiville recalls with fondness the time a talented actor showed up for dress rehearsal “drunk as a skunk.” Another time a volunteer took to “mooning” actors as they exited the stage, she said.
“It’s been a very interesting run,” Prindiville said. “We have a million funny stories.”
Word of the Players’ imminent demise has set the close-knit suburban theater community abuzz. The group’s departure leaves only one professional theater company in Park Ridge, the Park Ridge Gilbert and Sullivan Society, which performs mostly light operas.
“I’m upset about the Players because they’ve been around for so long, and there are some good people there,” said Steve Walanka, a member of the former Wheeling Park Productions theater group. That group closed after a dispute over money and space problems with its sponsor, the Wheeling Park District.
Walanka, though, hopes his group will return in some other form because “it’s vitally important to have theater in the suburbs.”
Nicola Howard, president of the Suburban Community Theater Association, called the Players’ departure “a real shame.”
With their final show, the Players will return to their roots. Bryant will direct the 1939 comedy, “The Man Who Came to Dinner,” one of the first plays the group performed.
“We have created so much laughter and so much entertainment for people,” Bryant said. “I just feel that we deserve a splash of an exit.”
