Change of plans for community theatre, choosing “Anne Frank” for next mainstage play

When a community theatre group announces a schedule of plays for a season, it’s betting on attracting enough actors to fill all the parts. That, however, doesn’t always happen.

La Crosse Community Theatre (LCT) found itself short of the actors needed for a March production of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,” the courtroom drama about race relations set decades ago in the South.

So, with a limited amount of rehearsal time, LCT found a smaller show to fill the spot in their schedule.

Director William Garcia is now preparing ‘The Diary of Anne Frank,” with a cast drawn from the people who auditioned for “Mockingbird.”

Garcia said the idea of having a new round of auditions might work for future shows.

“But we are under a very strong time crunch,” Garcia said, “and we wanted to honor the people that did come and audition. They wanted to be part of the show, they wanted to do community theatre.”

The cast of “Anne Frank,” the real-life story of a girl, whose family hid from the Nazis in World War II, has just a month to rehearse that drama.

The scheduled opening night at the Weber Center is March 24.

“They really wanted to be in the show, they did a great job,” Garcia said. “We noticed that what we did have was a lot of wonderful young actresses that were very passionate about the work that they were doing, very interested in it.”

LCT last performed a production about Anne Frank, called “And Then They Came for Me,” in September of 2017.

“To Kill a Mockingbird” was most recently performed by LCT in September of 2008.