Mumberley Inheritance

MIKE’S RANT

I’m sure you will agree that this is truly a funny and fun show. And all the performances are wonderful and hilarious. This was my last show and association with Scarborough Village Theatre. To show their appreciation they shunned me! Sadly community theatre leadership is fraught with politics. Power struggles, favouritism, and petty jealousies are common in most community theatre groups. Most of the performers and stage crew are wonderful people but they are brought down by a few insecure and self-centred leaders with a lack of vision and, frankly, just bad-taste! Really, only 10% of community theatre is watchable on an artistic and quality level, the rest is simply terrible. If this makes me sound bitter—I am.

If you love theatre, that’s wonderful, but not all theatre is good—just like not all movies are good. We all love to see our cute kids in a play and support our friends in a show but this does not encourage quality theatre. You are just supporting your kids and your friends—which is a good thing. We need to continue to support our communities.

But you should also support and especially encourage quality amateur theatre. I like to use the term “amateur theatre” over “community theatre.” Amateur theatre, like amateur sports, attracts people who studied, trained and practiced their craft, usually in an educational setting. People who might have been successful but decide not to continue to pursue the unstable and mercurial area of professional arts. Sadly these are often people marginalized and rejected by the community theatre leadership. You would think that would not be the case as these people could help increase quality. That said, some of these would-be professionals have an axe to grind and act just as badly as the wannabes. Perhaps that is the reason for the lack of respect by the community for anyone with theatre training—or perhaps it’s just jealousy.

Hey, there’s a lot of pretty bad professional theatre out there as well. Whatever the reason for the terrible state of non-professional theatre I encourage anyone interested in theatre to search out that 10% of quality amateur theatre hidden in a sea of bland, uninspired and embarrassing community theatre. It exists but you really have to look for it!

Photos by Karen Koenig, of the rehearsal of the Mumberley Michael Jackson BAD song, choreographed by Emily Poirier. This was such an amazing show. There will never be another one like it!

Cast’s comedic ability highlighted in The Mumberley Inheritance Scarborough Theatre Guild’s final production of the season now on stage

This is basically a trailer for our show. Starting in just a few hours! 2pm, Scarborough Village Theatre. Get in if you can - I think we might be sold out!! :D

(But of course there are 3 more shows:

Thurs June 18th - 8pm
Fri June 19th - 8pm
Sat June 20th - 2pm

Dudley Do Right: Snidely Whiplash (Alfred Molina) vs Dudley's (Brendan Fraser) Vampires Snidely Whiplash (Alfred Molina) steals the town mortgages. However Dudley Do Right (Brendan Fraser) is more concerned with vampires. Subscribe to the Pict...

Push the button, Cringe! An excellent film in the exact style to get you ready for our show! And you'd better be ready, cause you've only got 5 more chances to see it!

The Great Race - Push the Button Max This is a clip from one of my favorite movies (The Great Race -- 1965) where Professor Fate (Jack Lemmon) unveils his masterpiece car the Hannibal Twin 8 to ...