We, the Bigfork Community Players, are determined to do community theater well. A performance should leave the actors proud for having left the audience delighted. Hearty laughter at the comic lines is essential. Tears at the touching moments are appreciated. Rapt silence at the climactic conclusion is expected. But that’s not enough. When the final lights go out or the final curtain falls, the audience has to be changed for the better. Changed in the sense of being excited to live life fuller or relieved that, compared to the characters onstage, their own life decisions have been wiser. Shared experience makes us closer, makes us a community. Community theater provides shared experience.

Bigfork is a community and there are many ways to get involved in a community. Acting onstage in full view of your friends, neighbors, relatives, and coworkers is a quick, total immersion method for getting involved in community. Granted, being greeted everywhere you go by people you’re sure you’ve never met can take some getting used to. But it’s a good feeling, that feeling of knowing you’re part of something bigger than yourself. We’re intent on enhancing the Bigfork Community Players’ contribution as a significant part of our community. We welcome everyone to join us in that effort.

We finish this season with Airport Grille, a comedy written by local plawyright David Vale. Although the comedy of a small Montana restaurant inevitably draws from his twelve years experience of owning one, he assures us that none of the characters in the play have ever been seen in his restaurant.