ACT feels like home for actors and audiences of all ages
Published 2:00 pm Thursday, November 26, 2020
By Ryan Anderson
Artistic Civic TheatreFront row, from left, Jennifer Phinney, Sandy Martin and Rick Martin; middle, from left, Wes Phinney and Heather Burton; and back row, from left, Kate Phinney, Meg Phinney and Sydney Holloway gathered on Nov. 8 at the Artistic Civic Theatre to celebrate the contributions to the ACT of founders Rick and Sandy Martin during the past three decades.
As the Artistic Civic Theatre celebrated paying off the note on its building earlier this month, it was a natural time for the couple who gave the ACT its start in the early 1990s, Rick and Sandy Martin, to reflect on memorable moments from the theater’s history.
For example, a few weeks before “The Music Man” was scheduled to open, Dalton was paralyzed by the “Blizzard of ’93,” so Rick Martin and a few others essentially “camped out at the trade center” to complete sets, etc., he recalled. In fact, on opening night, some of the paint wasn’t even dry.
Itinerant early years
Before moving into its current home on Gaston Street, the ACT was a “gypsy” company, rehearsing at spots like Westwood School and performing at venues ranging from the Dalton Golf & Country Club to the trade center.
They took their stage, literally, to the country club for shows, and “it was so much work, but there was lots of camaraderie,” Rick Martin said. “We did some pretty clever stuff.”
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Rick and Sandy “were the heart and soul of ACT from the beginning,” said Wes Phinney, who was the ACT’s first director. “Their passion for the organization was infectious and kept many of us going when we might have simply given up.”
“They have dedicated so, so much time, endless hours of sewing, painting, building, directing and on and on,” said Jennifer Phinney, Rick and Sandy’s daughter. “While we were all building sets or moving stuff out of the country club at 2 a.m. at 25 years old, they were in their 50s.”
“My dad was always the last one to leave, taking out the trash and vacuuming the theater while the cast and crew were” unwinding at a local restaurant, she added. “He still is sometimes the last to leave” after a show.
“I vacuumed my way out of the country club at 3 a.m. more times than I can tell you, but we had fun and a lot of laughs,” Sandy Martin said. “We got to know so many people so well, and our paths probably would not have crossed otherwise” if not for theater.
“You form bonds with people you never knew until you spend all this time together,” Rick Martin said. “This takes time, but it’s time well spent.”
Dazzling musicals and a blackout
The summer of 2014 production of “Les Miserables” stands out as a highlight, and because so much more space was required to execute that musical properly, it was moved to Dalton High School, Rick Martin said. That production included a live orchestra and ornate sets.
“A Christmas Carol,” performed by the ACT for the first time in 1996, was another banner production, as Wes Phinney partnered with Ward Satterfield to write 17 songs, with the former handling lyrics and the latter music, Sandy Martin said. “I was just blown away.”
Both Rick and Sandy Martin still hear regularly from people who proclaim they “were there the night the lights went out,” Rick marveled. Right before show time for “Dearly Departed,” a power outage in the area killed the lights, so “we found every flashlight we could and did the show with flashlights and candles.”
Education and youth outreach
The educational mission of the ACT, as well as an emphasis on collecting donations for other nonprofits in the community, set it apart from the start from community theater elsewhere, Wes Phinney said. Fulfilling that educational mission included doing mini-musical adaptations of fairy tales at local schools, and “we once did 12 schools in one day, (which), looking back, I have no idea how we did it.”
When the ACT added children’s theater, “it filled a big need,” and it also enlarged the ACT’s circle, Sandy Martin said. Now, the children of those children are in ACT shows.
Youth theater also “gets parents involved, and they stay involved,” she added. “We always told children that theater is a team sport, and everyone needs to (contribute) to be successful.”
Rick Martin witnessed numerous children transform from shy to leaders during the course of their time with the ACT children’s theater.
“If you can teach a child to have enough comfort and confidence to get up in front of people and perform, that is a valuable life skill,” he said. “We all have to sell ourselves in life.”
A sweet signature
For a quarter century, Rick and Sandy Martin have made chocolate chip cookies available at intermission of ACT productions, another flourish that made the theater feel like home for so many, said Rob Thompson, the ACT’s managing director. “It’s a big number, the number of cookies they’ve made, probably in the millions.”
The idea of food at intermission began with the inaugural show in the current building, “Smoke on the Mountain,” which mentions lemonade and fried pies, Rick Martin said. Chick-fil-A provided lemonade, ice and cups for every performance, and local churches took care of the pies.
Following that production, Sandy suggested cookies for future productions, and they never stopped, he said.
“It’s nice to have a signature.”
Author: Scenic Stage
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