Do players in community theatre get paid for lead roles or is their performance strictly for applause?

Answer 1

Community Theatre is most often a volunteer operation.

The paid positions are usually the ones where people are devoting full time to get a job done. The Director of Administration or Theatre Manager may be paid as they devote full time to the work of running the theatre.

Depending on your community, actors may be paid gas money for participating in productions, but usually, they act for the opportunity to get stage experience and to cut their teeth on different parts. Generous theatres will provide comps for the actors friends or agents.

In Los Angeles we have a plan where professional union actors are allowed to work in theatres with 99 seats or fewer and may be paid a small stipend. Some small theatres are supported by membership dues paid by the actors to pay for theatre space, royalties to do plays and other expenses.

Whether the actors whom you ask about get applause, is, of course, up to them and their talent. One can tell polite applause from an ovation, right?

Answer 2

depending on the size of the community, the players often have to provide for their own wardrobe, and chip in for set design and all. It is very much a love of theatre that keeps them going- in the smaller communities.
The larger cities will sometimes have paid performers, but even then, there are often neighborhood theatres that are done entirely because the performers want to do it.
These people do an excellent job of providing entertainment to the masses, and should be supported because of it.

Answer 3

Professional = paid.

Community theatre = unpaid.

There are some larger community theatres that will give an honouriam to the director, producer and stage manager.

Never to the performers.

Answer 4

There may be some community theatre groups who pay a small stipend to actors, but generally it's for the applause.

Answer 5

Depends on what you mean by "community theatre." Normally, community theatre = non-union productions, in which it would be unusual for the actors to receive any pay for their work.

In theory, community theatres exist so that people who are NOT theatre professionals can have an outlet for their artistic urges. Which is not to say, of course, that they don't do good work; they do.

Answer 6

That, my friend, is the difference between professional theatre and community theatre!

Answer 7

It depends on the theatre, there are many community theaters in the USA, each commuityt theater has its own policy.