What Crestview doesn’t currently have is a community theater.
Crestview Mayor J.B. Whitten launched the city’s “cultural series” program back in 2019 as a way to enhance the community’s quality of life. He explained then, “Every city that does well has a certain amount of culture.”
Whitten’s vision of cultivating Crestview as a haven of sorts for fine and performing arts programs is closer to being realized than ever, as a group of volunteers is building what they envision as the city’s permanent performing arts organization.
The Crestview Theatre Troupe is in the early stages of coming together. The group’s dual effort now is building its team while planning a performing arts festival this fall.
“It will be a one-day event, with one-acts, monologues, and singing and dancing,” said Brittany Young, a Crestview High School teacher and one of the group’s organizers. “We’re planning to have vendors there, including local artists.”
Berit Faust used to lead a community theater group. Her troupe, called View From The Stage, produced community theater shows in Crestview for nine years before she stepped away to care for her husband after a stroke.
Faust, who serves as an advisor to the budding Crestview Theatre Troupe, hopes others who don’t believe they have the time to participate reconsider.
“We all have obligations,” she said. “It’s not that we’re not passionate about theater. We understand that no one can be in two places at once.”
“But we need help to put this together,” Young added.
Faust said this new theater troupe has the one ingredient her organization didn’t – support from the city.
“It was a constant struggle,” she admitted. “We didn’t have cooperation from the city. We had to rent theater space. We had to spend so much time to raise all of these funds just to put on a show.”
Faust said building a volunteer theater group was her full-time job. “So, we had theater here for a few years, but when my husband had a massive stroke, I just couldn’t do it anymore.”
Faust said the limitations her group faced – finding rehearsal space, renting theater space for performances, raising the money, building the sets, creating the costumes, and all to produce a show that could only run for one weekend – did nothing to diminish local interest.
Crestview may not currently have a community theater, Faust explained, “but we still have a theater community. They’re just driving to south county now.”
Meghan Schultz, who will serve as the new organization’s director, said the key to the troupe’s success is simply community participation.
“Yes, we will need funding,” she said. “But this will succeed if people simply participate.”
Young, who is heavily involved in performing arts at Crestview High School, believes the community theater is a much-needed opportunity for area youth.
“There is a funnel system for athletics,” Young said. “From elementary to college, and even into professional sports. But what about the arts? These kids in band, in chorus, who perform in high school productions, what happens when they graduate?
“Crestview needs this.”
City involvement limited
The city’s involvement in the community theater project includes little financial assistance. City Cultural Services Director Brian Hughes explained that the community theater project, like the community chorus, does receive support from the Mayor’s Cultural Series.
But that support, he explained, is through the use of city facilities, such as Warriors Hall in the Whitehurst Municipal Building, or the Crestview Community Center, for free public performances and for rehearsal space.
“I support the programs by creating graphics and publicity, writing media releases, announcing performances, and helping with set-ups,” he said.
Hughes said the city’s involvement with the Crestview Theatre Troupe thus far has been to help get things going. “It was very similar to what we did with the Crestview Community Chorus, in which we identified a cultural need, found a qualified person to spearhead it, then stepped back and let them run with it.
“In the case of the Community Theatre Troupe, we were very blessed to have found several experienced and enthusiastic theatre buffs to spearhead the program.”
Past Mayor’s Cultural Series programs include regularly scheduled monthly Family Movie Nights, an observance of the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings, the 9/11 20th anniversary memorial, performances by the Crestview Community Chorus and the North Okaloosa Community Band, public concerts by the Crestview High School chorus and band, and a “Friday Night Live” talent night produced by the Crestview High School theatre program.
Who can participate?
Community theater isn’t just for singers, dancers and actors. It isn’t just for kids. Or adults. It turns out, there is something for literally everyone at Crestview Theatre Troupe.
“We need people who can build sets, who can sew costumes,” Faust said. “So much goes into producing a show.”
Experience, the ladies stressed, is not necessary. Just an interest, and a willingness to participate. And by “participation,” Young said that includes being a part of the audience.
“We can’t do anything without people,” Young said.
All Crestview Theatre Troupe lacks, Schultz said, is people willing to participate. “We’re building the foundation,” she added. “This is a perfect time for you to get involved.”
Young said the city’s support has been instrumental in getting the program off the ground, but admitted that city support alone won’t work.
“I feel like I can walk into the mayor’s office, and he will try to get it done for us,” she said. “But he’s the mayor, and he’s busy, too. The mayor’s running a whole town. This is a passion of his, but he’s one person.
“He can lead us to be successful, but at the end of the day, we need others to step up and volunteer.
A single production takes time, Young said. A two-hour musical can take 100 hours to create. “But,” she added. “There is no better thing than to invest in where you live.”
For more information about Crestview Theatre Troupe, check out their Facebook page at www.facebook.com/CrestviewTheatreTroupe, or send an email to Erin Brush at erinlbrush@gmail.com.