Theater Can Broaden Your Horizons

• Posted on June 21, 2009 at 8:55 am

As some of my friends will know, I spent many years involved in theater productions when I was younger.

I guess I can remember about 20 years back, the Consortium for the Arts Program every summer,

I really did Love being On that Stage.

This was a program for students in grades 6-12, in one of the three school districts below,

participate in an end-of-summer performance that they’ve worked on all summer to complete.

My first production with The Consortium For The Arts was The Wizard of Oz, in the summer of 1989. These annual productions were held, most years, at Norristown Area High School, Sometimes Plymouth Whitemarsh High School, or Upper Merion Area High School, in Pennsylvania, USA. Now I believe they only do their performances at

Upper Merion Area High School.

I think it is great that my 13-years younger sister Kelly was given the opportunity

 to enjoy what this theater program has to offer also.

Being only 10 years old when I began; I had my “big role” as the little witch. This was because I was so short and I just “matched”

the “little person” that Popped Out Suddenly as Dorothy & the rest of the gang threw water on the Wicked Witch.

She Sounded, “Melting, melting, melting… As her now lightly sounding ploys for help in excaping were close to null. That is when… 

My “HUGE” Starring role, I appeared from behind the Big Black Cauldron, dressed completely in Black (perfect matching my naturally brownish-black toned fluffy hair). Perfect.

 “The Witch” was not totally melted yet, in our production. Then the Cowardly Lion, Tin Man, & Scarecrow (the people who played those characters, of course; See Links, caught me, snagged me up eagerly, and quickly placed me back in the Witch’s (my …ha ha ha) cauldron.

Next, it was my young responsibility to preview a dark-haired Barbie Doll, “proving” to our audinece of family & friends, that the Wicked Witch Indeed Was Dead!

Traaa lala lala-la lala-la lala-la…

…Tra lala lala-la laaa laaaaa

I really did have a GREAT time during the 8 years I participated in The Consortium for the Arts and I am really Glad to know that a few of my acting buddies from years ago, are now The Only Reason That The Show Still Goes On…

And they now have their own non-profit organization called Theatre Horizon.

CHECK IT OUT …

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Matthew Decker and Erin Reilly are the founders and Artistic Directors of Theatre Horizon.

Matthew Decker is the Resident Director for Theatre Horizon. Favorite company productions include Holiday Show at the Swing Club, Once on This Island, You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown, Book of Days, and Waiting for Lefty. Other directorial credits include Jason Robert Brown’s Songs for a New World (HERE Arts Center), Aida (Villanova University), Seussical and The Wizard of Oz (Consortium for the Arts), and She Loves Me, Our Town, and Anything Goes (Haverford Theatre Ensemble). At the Arden Theatre Company, Matthew assistant directed Terrence J. Nolen’s productions of Assassins and A Prayer for Owen Meany and directed the 2007 – 2008 Apprentice Showcase, Trial by Fire In Old City. He also served as the Associate Producer of Our Town at the Arden. As a teaching artist, Matthew has worked with the Philadelphia Shakespeare Festival, the Wilma Theater, Oasis Kids, and regularly teaches acting classes with Theatre Horizon. He is a graduate of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts where he studied at the Atlantic Theatre Company. email Matt

Erin Reilly has performed in Theatre Horizon’s productions of Holiday Show at the Swing Club, The Violet Hour, and Working. She has also performed at the Walnut Street Theatre (Mr. Bailey’s Minder), Mum Puppettheatre in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Wizard of Oz (Barrymore Nomination – Ensemble), Eurydice (Wilma Theater), Turn of the Screw (Cape May Stage), Whores (InterAct Theatre ), Valparaiso (Theatre Exile), A Play on Two Chairs (Inis Nua Theatre), Really Rosie (TheatreCirc), Fuchsia (Gay and Lesbian Theatre Festival), and Mad Cow Musical (2003 Philly Fringe). She has directed over 17 productions at American Family Theater, Haverford High School, the Agnes Irwin School, and the Consortium for the Arts. Erin received certificates in Theater from American Conservatory Theatre (San Francisco), and Theatre aux Mains Nues (Paris) and received her B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania. As an acting and playwrighting teacher, she has worked with Philadelphia Young Playwrights, TheatreCirc, Wilma Theater, Philadelphia Shakespeare Festival and Lantern Theater.
email Erin

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