Fundraiser to feature comedy without a set or a net
Staff writer
Sunflower Theatre will put on a performance with no costumes, props, scenery, or true stage Jan. 23 at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church.
Instead, the performance will rely entirely on a group of four performers and the audience.
“The audience makes or breaks it,” Sunflower Theatre board member and performer Becky Yoder said. “You can do the exact same skit with different audiences, and one audience will be belly laughing the whole time, another group would just be staring at us.”
Reader’s theater, also known as “theatre of the mind” or interpreter’s theater, is a performance that involves reading a dramatic or comedic script without any sets or props.
“You can get any genre, but I thought that if we’re going to perform, I want people to laugh,” Yoder said.
Yoder has been with a reader’s theater group since 2014 and recently helped form Peabody Players, a reader’s theater group that includes Sheryl Simmonds, Stephanie Ax, and Faie Frederickson.
“We had our first rehearsal Sunday,” Yoder said. “It went great; we’ve got good chemistry there.”
They will perform two short comedic skits at the church while the actual Sunflower Theater remains under construction. Donations will be accepted for the theater’s renovation.
A coffee house — or “kaffeehaus” — also will be open before and after the performance.
“We Lutherans, we go back to Germany, with Martin Luther and all that,” Yoder said. “So we spelled it how you spell it in German.”
St. Paul’s Kaffeehaus will serve tea, Legacy Farm coffee, and homemade scones, muffins, and other pastries. Local musicians and songwriters will perform live music from 2 p.m. until the start of the reader’s theater at 3 p.m.
“Hopefully, if we get a good turnout, then we’ll have the kaffeehaus open on Sundays,” Yoder said.