Theatre In the Grove

Theatre in the Grove is a nice community theatre that has been here since the 1960’s. My entire family has been in shows here since 1983, and I have done close to twenty shows myself over the years so my review will be somewhat biased, but fair nonetheless.
TITG puts on surprisingly good shows considering its budget, and attracts professional actors out of Portland as well as heavily seasoned veteran locals. Whether you want to do a show just for fun or to really practice the craft, this is a great place to do it — none of the pressures of professional theatre and they try to find a spot for people of all talent levels. They are far less pretentious than most of the other local theatre groups.
As a patron, they usually put on really good productions. My favorites are the ensemble comedies and farces, and the big blow-​out musicals when they have the full orchestra (usually the best of each season are the holiday shows). Once a year they put on a special children’s show specifically for the area elementary school students, and they provide summer acting classes for the kids (I never attended one as a kid, but I wish I did).
The bathrooms are *extremely* small, so intermissions run incredibly long while waiting for large productions’ patrons to cycle through. The lobby is tiny so expect to feel cramped. Bud Reese took out about every other row of seats throughout most of the auditorium several years ago so there is tons of legroom for most of it, bringing down the capacity to a little over 200. It’s a shame to cover up the original tongue-​and-​groove flooring under the seats, but it was sorely needed because the rows were so narrow previously. The seats are incredibly comfortable (way better than the original wooden seats they had when I was a kid). They don’t use sound reinforcement for the actors, which I love as it requires you to PROJECT your voice, which I think people don’t know how to do anymore with the proliferation of wireless microphones and better technology. For smaller theatres, I think it sounds much better without the amplification. The stage is huge when you consider that this is a century-​old movie theatre that was not built to support vaudeville. They enlarged the backstage area a long time ago so there’s plenty of room. The ceilings aren’t high enough for live theatre, however, so sets cannot be flown and must be moved around on wheeled carts, but fortunately there’s plenty of room for all but the largest musicals.
Overall, it’s a great theatre. Now there are lots of other local theatres vying for your business, but this is the original one on this side of the county, and I still think one of the best.