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Of course, the people who are most essential to the success of area theatre are the ones ponying up the dough to get it produced (and this includes you, my ticket-buying friends). But it's hard to imagine the theatre year being as enjoyable as it was without the contributions of the following 12 individuals, each of whom added considerable flair to several area productions - oftentimes at several area venues - in 2006.

Most people - whether they've had theatrical experience or not - understand the concept of the Actor's Nightmare. You don't know your lines, you're not in costume, you don't even know what play you're in ... yet you somehow find yourself on stage, in front of an audience, and expected to perform. Now.

Nickel & Dimed, currently playing at Augustana College's Potter Hall, opens with the Server's Nightmare. In the span of five minutes, our protagonist, the newly employed Barbara (Christine Barnes), is briefly introduced to the eatery's wait staff, gets a quick tutorial on procedure, takes breakfast orders from her first (uncooperative) table, brings out their meals, and is immediately ordered to return them - the toast is wrong, the oatmeal is cold, and could I change my side dish to prunes?

At which point Barbara turns to the audience and says, with a frozen grin indicating barely concealed rage, "This is not my real life."

Certainly, there was cause for concern.

When the Prenzie Players made their 2003 debut with Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, they did so at Rock Island's Peanut Gallery, which didn't have a proper stage and could only seat, at maximum, 40 people. The show had an inadequate budget (between $200 and $300), a run of only two performances, and no word-of-mouth; Prenzie's founders - Cait Bodenbender, John "J.C." Luxton, Aaron Sullivan, and Denise Yoder - had every reason to expect Measure for Measure to fail.

Yet Friday night's show played to a full house. And on Saturday ... .

In the realm of educational theatre, the rehearsal process for a main-stage show generally lasts several weeks, if not months. It can

be hard work. Yet if the selected material gives actors and directors enough to work with, what could be a laborious process is, for its participants, more often a joy.
Read More About Comic Depth Perceptions: Augustana College's "The Real Inspector Hound" And "Black Comedy"...

How wonderful and humbling the last eight months have been.
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