THEATER IS FOR EVERYONE!

Council Member Rhonda Staats Talks About Her Involvement in Community Theater

By Kate Hollander, Council Staff

July 5, 2007

Rhonda Staats, long-time Council member and indefatigable chair of our legislative committee, insists—and proves—that there’s a place for blind people on stage. For many years she’s lent her fine voice and boundless enthusiasm to the La Crosse Community Theatre—and this summer she’ll cross the border into Minnesota for a run of performances of “The Music Man” for the Appleseed Community Theatre as part of La Crescent’s sesquicentennial. In this “valentine to small-town life in Iowa in 1912,” she’ll be playing the Widow Paroo, mother to Marian the librarian and little Winthrop, a character part that involves singing and a lot of stage-time.

“One of the things I like best about being involved in community theater is that every time you meet new people,” says Rhonda. “And the heightened emotionality and bonding of the cast really lends itself to forming deep and significant relationships. Really, nearly all of my closest friends outside the visually impaired community are from the theater community.”

Being involved with theater not only builds relationships, Rhonda explains, but it has also helped her to feel more at home in the world of visual culture. “I love that I always learn some new dance steps or gestures or visual cultural things. The hard part is learning this stuff and moving like other people, because of course totally blind people don’t move like other people. So it’s best when I’m learning if I have somebody spotting me and helping me so I’m moving like the other people—and then you have to remember how to walk and chew gum at the same time,” she says, laughing. “It’s funny, because the director will bark out some command like ‘bird arms!’ and I don’t know, I don’t have any idea what ‘bird arms’ are! Thankfully, Mrs. Paroo’s never been a dancing role, she just sits and she sews and she sings. But then you find yourself leading a little gig riff during ‘Shapoopy,’ and it’s really liberating, it’s like, ‘Hey, I can do this!’”

The theater experience can be equalizing, too. Although scripts may be used in early rehearsals, the process doesn’t require its participants to be able to read standard print. In fact, as rehearsals progress, cast members must lose the scripts and perform from memory. “Blind people should know that in the end, everybody’s off-book,” Rhonda says. “Most of the time [outside of theater], you’re the odd man out, and everybody’s reading print. I start out with a Brailled script, but by the end, everybody has to have it memorized, everybody’s off-book.”

Rhonda’s delight is evident as she speaks about her experiences in the theater community: what it’s like to work on a new stage with different acoustics, and the challenge of getting on- and off-stage in a new theater. “Life on stage is somehow more intense than the rest of life,” she says, “and it’s very compelling to me, very seductive, to be part of that. Everybody works together, everybody makes allowances, and we all get it done. And then,” she says with a laugh, “people pay to come and see us do what we do!”

Details are below:

“The Music Man” at La Crescent High School, 1302 Lancer Blvd., La Crescent, MN (just over the bridge from La Crosse.)

Show runs July 20-22, and 27-29. Matinee performances on the 22 nd and 29 th at 1:00pm. All other performances, 7:30pm.

Tickets are $10.