By Ned Warwick, Theatre Alliance of Greater Philadelphia

It is awfully easy to take for granted the cultural riches that abound in Philadelphia. Vaguely, we assume they have always been here—a natural and inevitable part of our heritage—and that every community is similarly blessed. But listening in for the past six months to what people have to say when they sit on the Philly Theatre Casting Couch, especially from those who have moved here, gives me a whole new appreciation for what we have and how much and how good it all is.

Take for instance, Karen and Ken Womack, who last month took a turn on the Philly Theatre Casting Couch when it appeared at the Granite Run Mall. They are from Philadelphia originally but moved to Texas where they lived for twenty-three years, relocating back here five years ago. They are big theatre goers and in the politest way possible you could almost hear their sighs of relief to be back.

“It’s just been a wonderful reawakening to how cultural the city is, and how much fun it is to be in the midst of artists and to go to the theatre,” said Karen, who urged that everybody needs to get to the theatre at least twice a year, even if it requires a little sacrifice. And then to my point, Ken added: “Once you get exposed, don’t take it for granted. (Theatre) is really great entertainment and sometimes I think people tend to overlook it.”

Karen and Ken, like others who sat on the couch at the Granite Run Mall, regard theatre as a uniquely transporting art form. “It just comes alive, you cry and get swept along; it’s participatory,” said Karen. “I get transported to a different world. I can forget about the bills and the kids and the car pooling.” And when their son Kevin was old enough, they took him to The Lion King, and together they cried, silently they sang the words and in the process made their son with that first bite a theatre-goer for life.

Someone else who has returned to Philadelphia and feels equally strongly about the transporting power of theatre is Mary Ann Baldwin. Sitting on the Philly Theatre Casting Couch, she said that when she goes to the theatre, especially when it is comedy, she enters with a wide smile on her face, ready to immerse herself in the experience. She often goes with her sister and the two of them can’t help but laugh out loud, such that an appreciative warning cry goes up whenever they enter a local theatre—“The Baldwin sisters are in the house.”

That fusion of theatre, performance, and audience is so important to Mary Ann, who happens to be the producing artistic director of the Commonwealth Classic Theatre Company, of Media, that it befuddles her when audiences in movie theatres clap at a blank screen when a movie finishes. For Mary Ann, who returned with her family from living in New York for fifteen years, it is crucial that theatre people be part of a community, a real world, one with which they daily interact. From the soil of everyday life, great theatre sprouts.