Theater Project Board Preseident Corrie Calderwood Speaks Out

Welcome and thank you for supporting The Theater Project during our exciting 40th year season!

I am new to the Theater Project Board but not new to Brunswick or the theater. Like many Theater Project alumni, I owe the theater and Al a lot, most significantly, for my husband and family. My first Theater Project production was during the fall of my senior year at Mt. Ararat. I did not play soccer and the high school’s musical production occurred in the spring. Like many teenage students, I felt out-of-place and unable to really be myself in most high school activities. And like many teenagers, I was trying to figure my place in the fast-approaching adult world I was preparing to enter. I was encouraged to audition for the Theater Project’s Young Company’s holiday production, The Butterfinger’s Angel, Mary & Joseph, Herod the Nut, & the Slaughter of 12 Hit Carols in a Pear Tree. I was the tree.  On the first day of rehearsals, I walked into the dark lobby and met the boy who six years later became my husband.

Butterfinger’s Angel was my favorite production, but not my last. Over the next several years I acted and worked as stage manager and truly grew from a nervous teenager to a confident young woman. I eventually moved to the big city of Portland and away from my active time at the Theater Project. When Kevin and I returned to Brunswick with our four-year old daughter Sophie, we couldn’t wait until she was old enough to attend her first Theater Project summer camp. This year our younger daughter Lily attended her first theater camp and learned how to be her own super hero!

It is an honor to be a member of the board and to be elected President during this exciting season that celebrates our tremendous forty years in the Brunswick community. Think about that. 1971. Gas was $0.40 a gallon, the average house cost just over $25,000, you could see Love Story in the theater for $1.50, Walt Disney World opened in Orlando, and a little theater in Brunswick, Maine was started by a clown named Al.

A lot has changed in our world since then but little has changed at The Theater Project. We’re still a small, non-profit community theater benefiting actors and theater lovers of all ages from our Brunswick and midcoast communities. Over these forty years, thousands of students and children have been participants, actors, and members of our company and we have produced over 900 live theater performances! Think about that. How many people in our community have been moved to tears—either with pride, laughter, or true emotion—in this small, wonderful place called the Theater Project? It’s nearly uncountable, the number of lives that have been affected and made better because of their connection to the Theater Project. As Wendy says, theater changes lives. It has mine and I hope it does yours as well.

Thank you for your continued support. Send your kids and your grandkids to our year-round camps, encourage your teenagers to audition for our outstanding Young People’s Company, come out to support and enjoy live theater in Brunswick all year long.

If your life has been changed by the Theater Project, I encourage you to join me in generously contributing to help support this important part of our community for the next forty years!