For over 17 years we have continued to pursue and produce the highest quality of community theatre in the Gallatin Valley. We have not been satisfied with simply "putting on another show", we have wanted to educate and inspire both actors and audiences in the live theatrical experience.

As an artistic expression, live theatre is the best representation of the human condition. In early Greece, when theatre as we know it began, actors graced the stages of Athens and elsewhere with plays which were used to bring understanding to the struggles in life faced by those people 3000 years ago.

Throughout mankind's history we have often turned to the stage to discover and experience a higher meaning of life. From the religious dramas of ancient Greece to the "Miracle Plays" of the Middle Ages, to the spectacle of the West End Theatres in modern London, people have been drawn to the live stage. Sometimes it has been simply to escape for a few hours, often to find answers to questions that few of us even know how to ask.

Several years ago New Life Players Theatre Company began a journey which was the culmination of 21 years of my involvement with live theatre and my own personal journey as a Christian and a Minister of the Gospel. This journey was to discover means of expressing, through the entire production of a play, a higher, transcendent artistic truth. Many have searched for this over the years. Whether we look to Stanislavski in The Actor Prepares or Viola Spolin in Improvisation for the Theatre they were looking for that higher means of expressing truth upon the stage.

Viola Spolin says this in her writings; "We are working on two levels; the obvious, the story, the scenario, the characters. The other is the invisible; the luminous, the spirit-world."

I have seen different degrees of success in this pursuit, but they have always been limited to the first of these two levels (as Spolin points out). Thus began my journey into the Theatre of the Spirit.

Today the Players Theatre Company (formerly New Life Players) is seeing this journey lived out through its many productions. We have seen a community of artists come together and discover new levels of expressing and experiencing higher life. One of the marks of The Players' productions is a sense of joy and mutual acceptance which is often lost in the theatre community. Ego is diminished and the corporate good is elevated in an atmosphere of celebration and discovery as actors work together to reach the highest levels of artistic expression.

Audiences who have attended our productions have often commented on this atmosphere of joy which they have experienced, even when the play itself deals with heavy issues. This has been our greatest reward, and our greatest success as theatre artists.

So, who are we at The Players Theatre Company? People on a journey who have discovered that "the journey is everything." Join us as we journey together to higher realms as we pursue the higher life!