The auditorium is quiet, the lights come up, and you and the rest of your fourth grade class belts out: "Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweeping down the plain."
For a moment, it feels like the whole world is watching. For some that memory fades. For others, it lives, and propels them into a world of church basements, hot glue, do-it-yourself costumes, and find-it-yourself props. This is community theater and it's the stuff of dreams for many who'll never know a stage bigger than their local high school.
Leah Hager Cohen spent a year chronicling the people, the pageantry, and the productions of the one of America's oldest community theaters. She found perfectly ordinary people who are CRAZY about make-believe, obsessed with breaking a leg on the stages, and backstages of community theaters. (Hosted by David Ropeik)
