Theatre at NDSU: Connecting with the Community for 100 Years

The 100th anniversary of the producing theatre at North Dakota State University—founded as the Little Country Theatre and now called LCT Productions—is a milestone not just the university but also the surrounding community can be proud of. Since its formation in 1914, this theatre has striven for enrichment and engagement beyond the NDSU student body and employees. Even in its yearlong centennial celebration, LCT Productions continues to promote theatre to as wide a community as it can.

Many of the centennial events occurred last spring, including a February screening of The Past is Prologue: Celebrating 100 Years of Theatre at NDSU, a documentary coproduced with Prairie

Public, and the May symposium “Playing on Common Ground: Theatre and the Complex Communities of the 21st Century.” The idea behind the symposium, according to LCT costume designer and Theatre Department head Rooth Varland, was that “theatre is a way of connecting people and providing a place for conversation and raising questions in the community.”

Those who missed the spring events will have the opportunity to attend workshops and possibly a performance this fall due to a $50,000 Bush Foundation grant recently received by LCT for the purpose of continuing the work of the symposium. “In the symposium,” Varland said, “we were starting to play around with the model of bringing experts and community members together, and the grant will allow us to explore this further.”

Through three “Common Ground” conversations—each with a cluster of activities—visiting experts, students, members of community organizations and the general public will explore the role of theatre in the community. “This ties right back into the heritage of the Little Country Theatre being an outreach program,” said Varland. Though dates and locations have not yet been finalized, organizers expect the “Common Ground” conversations to begin in November and take place on campus.

LCT’s symposium garnered notable praise this past summer when Varland and Theatre B’s Brad Delzer, an NDSU theatre alum, gave a presentation about the symposium at a conference in San Diego. A representative from the national University Resident Theatre Association (URTA) who attended their session described the goal, design and format of the symposium as “mind-blowing.”

Like many in the theatre world, Varland explained, people at URTA are searching for innovators in thinking and training. “Large theatres with resident companies are going away. It’s much more about small theatres springing up in response to a particular need at a particular time. That’s the reality of what the future of professional theatre is going to be.”

It’s a reality not all that different from aspects of the Fargo-area theatre scene in the 1910s. “One of the things our founder Alfred Arvold did,” Varland said, “was to go out and scout locations for natural amphitheatres built into the land.” These weren’t permanent structures, but existed for a short time as the environment allowed. “What a great way to think about the landscape, to re-envision it in that way,” admired Varland.

Arvold also saw theatre as a place for developing language. In 1914, the majority of households in the Fargo area didn’t speak English as a first language, so it was common for students to come to the university with English as their second language. “Attending a play was community language practice,” Varland said, “and Arvold was deliberate about noticing that.” At the same time, the Little Country Theatre recognized different nationalities by producing tableaus (still scenes with no dialogue) with ethnic costumes.

Today LCT Productions is equally eager to portray the community’s diversity. “When you take someone’s story and put it on stage, you’re validating their culture and their language, and it’s a way to open up communication,” Varland said.

Other goals for the near future, as LCT enters what it hopes are its next 100 years, include starting a dance program and further establishing theatre as a form of community engagement that serves the region. “We’d like to be a national resource for that, especially practices that impact rural communities,” said Varland. “There are a lot of people doing this for urban areas, but not so much for rural areas.” It is work anyone can become involved in by attending the “Common Ground” conversations—and, as always, by going to the theatre. [AWM]