Rochester Community Players

The Rochester Community Players (RCP), the oldest community theatre in New York State,^[1] is a local theater group in Rochester, Monroe County, New York, in the United States.

Incorporated in 1923,^[2] its first production, Wedding Bells, by playwright Salisbury Field,^[3] opened January 19, 1925 at the German House on Rochester's Gregory Street.^[4]

Production history

The Rochester Community Players, Inc. has produced over 600 plays since 1925.

Background

Early years

Early productions were not often dramatically challenging. One reviewer, David L. George, theater critic for the Democrat and Chronicle from 1911 to 1956, described the 1931 production of Old Lady 31 by Rachel Crothers as "a type of play which is seldom written now, when novelty and frank treatment of sex themes are demanded by the paying patrons. It is as wholesome as an old fashion, home made apple dumpling and as sweet as some of grandmother's best jam." Another reviewer, Amy H. Croughton, described the same play as "an out-moded, lavender and old lace sort of thing heavily loaded with sentimentality and deriving its comedy chiefly from charicture and exaggeration."^[2]

Theater quality appears to have risen after World War II. From the 1960s forward RCP has staged a variety of challenging works including; dramas, comedies, musicals and the classics.

1970s on

By the early 1970s RCP receded as other community theater organizations in Rochester began producing and attracting significant audiences. A regional equity professional theater, Geva Theatre Center was founded in 1972, and over a period of years the prominent community members who would have been members of the RCP Board in an earlier era were drawn to Geva instead.