The North Street Playhouse, Inc.

The North Street Playhouse is the only full-time producing theatre on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, and as far north as Salisbury, Maryland. As a result, the organization and various individuals associated with the Playhouse are often called on as representatives of the arts to other entities. Both the Artistic Director and another board member are adjunct faculty with the Eastern Shore Community

college. The theatre course offered by the college is taught by the Playhouse’s Artistic Director and classes are held at the Playhouse. In addition, as mentioned above, the Academy of Lifetime Learning has in the past offered two short courses on theatre that were held at the Playhouse and taught by the Artistic Director. The Playhouse has spearheaded several productions since 2008 bringing together casts of students and directors from all the Shore’s high schools, a unique project in this area. Although most of the schools compete against one another as part of the Virginia High School League one-act play competition, the schools have no other opportunity to work cooperatively on productions. Each time, this project has resulted in sold out houses which included audiences who cheered together for the combined efforts of all the students, a situation where everyone ‘won’ and there were no ‘losers’. In conjunction with “Minds Wide Open- Women in the Arts,” the Playhouse produced “The Women Project,” in which thirty-seven women from the community, most of whom had little or no theatre experience other than as audience members, participated in a theatre “boot camp” for two weeks, culminating with sold out staged reading performances of The Women by Clare Booth Luce. Just two weeks ago, I was approached by two women who had not been part of the project, wanting to know if we planned to do it again and wanting to be part of it the next time. The Playhouse has often offered free day time student performances and has always invited students and others to free preview performances. One of the participants in “The Women Project” works for the E.S. Literacy Council and has subsequently been cast in other Playhouse productions. As a result of her participation, we have had the opportunity to welcome literacy students and teachers to several of our preview performances. The feed back from those audience members has been very rewarding. Throughout its existence, the Playhouse’s board members have been active advocates for the arts in positions of leadership throughout the community, in both arts and non-arts related boards and activities. This is also true on the state level, where Playhouse board members serve/have served on a wide variety of arts related and non-arts related boards.