By Doug Marrin with Don Paulsell
Chelsea Area Players (CAP) are celebrating their 50th anniversary of community theater in Chelsea. And as a culmination of its remarkable history, CAP’s float also won first prize in the Chelsea Fair Parade.
The troupe delighted audiences with over 135 shows, including musicals, youth theatre, summer workshops and a winter dinner theatre. Chelsea’s Jeff Daniels was one of the original cast members during his high school days.
The CAP Blue Ribbon Float was designed by Brian Myers and decorated by the CAP Board and friends. It included rotating flames on the candles and a rotating medallion on top, all accompanied by the music “There’s no business like show business”. The skirt on the float showcased the logos of many of CAP’s major shows Next year, in June 2023, CAP is set to perform Jason Eyster’s long-awaited original musical “The Only Man In Town” – Frank’s Musical Story P. Glazier. Glazier, along with many others, was responsible for transforming Chelsea from a small rural farming town into the 20th century with industry, education, social programs, banking, the clock tower, protection against water and electricity fires.
The seed for Chelsea Area Players was planted at a night out with several former students of Chelsea High School Musicals, many of whom are involved in productions to this day. As they reminisced on the night of past productions, their desire to get together again and put on another show grew.
The first production, The Sound of Music, was produced on a shoestring budget under the auspices of the Leisure Council and would not have been possible without the support of Charlie Cameron. They opened on July 28, 1972 (you don’t know hot until you’ve played a nun in a high school auditorium where the temperature and humidity are around 95 degrees). Despite the heat and budget constraints, they stayed together and the following summer the Chelsea Players opened as a community theater company with a production of Fiddler on the Roof.
CAP’s mission is to enrich the educational and cultural life of the community, to promote understanding and appreciation of the performing arts, to provide meaningful entertainment, to encourage the interest and active participation of community in all phases of theater through dramatic productions and other related activities, and to foster and support the involvement of adolescents and young adults in the community in the dramatic arts.
Find out more about players from the Chelsea region on https://chelseaareaplayers.org/about/
Photos courtesy of Don Paulsell
