Eight hundred words couldn’t possibly do justice to 100 years of history. That’s why the full tale of the Rochester Community Players — the oldest community theater group in the city (and the second-oldest in New York State) — rests partly in the hands of Karen Olson.
Olson, a past RCP board president who now handles public relations, also recently became the group’s archivist, whittling hundreds of photos down to 87, presenting them in a gallery exhibition, scanning news clippings and helping plan a reunion picnic. A “Centennial Soirée” gala for RCP — first organized in 1923, incorporated in 1924 and on stage the following year — is also set for November 9 at the Century Club on East Avenue.
As such, Olson holds plenty of history in her hands. She said what makes RCP special harkens back to who first took the stage.
“They weren’t professional actors. They were your next door neighbor,” Olson said. “They were housewives. There was a teacher. There was a lawyer. The idea that everyday people could come together and put on a show that people wanted to see and do a really good job at it? That’s the community part that has always been important to this group.”
RCP’s final show of the 2025 season, “The African Company Presents Richard III,” opens at MuCCC on October 3.
Left: Mimi Kennedy and Gisela Fritzching on stage in 1960. Right: The Rochester Community Players costume crew in 1959. Courtesy of the Rochester Community Players.
The images from the group’s past reveal that the idea of everyday people carrying shows — central to local groups like Blackfriars Theatre, JCC CenterStage and The Company Theatre that began subsequently — was completely novel in the 1920s.
It also yielded some gems.
Rochester native Mimi Kennedy got her start on stage with RCP in 1960 as a 12-year-old in Agatha Christie’s “Spider’s Web.” Kennedy, who has since found great sitcom success (on CBS’s “Mom”) and film work (“Midnight in Paris”), said RCP provided her first two big acting tips.
“The first lesson was, you’re acting in the pauses. It’s not just about the lines,” Kennedy said. “The other was, it’s about the emotions. The lines might sound angry, but they might be coming from another emotion.”
In November, she will return to Rochester to be honorary chairperson of the soirée.
Robert Forster, the late Hollywood actor known for his roles in “Jackie Brown” and on the series “Breaking Bad,” also began his stage career with RCP, in a 1963 production of Neil Simon’s “Come Blow Your Horn.” Then, his surname was still Foster; he eventually added the extra letter to separate himself from another actor with the same name in the Screen Actors Guild.
Kennedy said Forster stopped by a rehearsal of RCP’s “Take Her, She’s Mine” in the early ‘60s and offered her some helpful notes after watching a scene.
“He beckoned me to the apron of the stage,” Kennedy recalled, “and I crouched down, and he went, ‘You’re hurt by your parents. You want them to love you and pay attention to you and they’re only paying attention to your sister. Try it that way.’”
Despite his fame, Forster stayed connected to the spirit of community theater.
“I can’t think of anything better for community than for neighbors to gather, place trust in one another and face the rigor of performance,” Forster wrote in the Theatre Association of New York State’s newsletter in 2007. “The more the merrier.”
Michael Krickmire agrees. He joined RCP as producing artistic director in 1987 and currently serves as board president; last season, he directed the musical “Baby.” Krickmire knows the power of community theater and said that’s why he’s remained loyal for decades.
“We try not to be insular. We try to welcome everybody in,” he said. “It’s a great place for those who say, well, I think I want to go on stage. I was on stage in high school. OK, come in. Audition. Who knows?”
There were times when it seemed like RCP wouldn’t make it. The group first performed at what is now the Historic German House before purchasing a former church and World War II-era machine shop at South Clinton Avenue and Meigs Street as its own theater (now The Playhouse/Swillburger).
RCP also found temporary residences at the Holiday Inn downtown, the former Botsford School of Dance in Pittsford and churches on Monroe Avenue and Rutgers Street. It settled at its current home, MuCCC, in 2010. Krickmire calls RCP a “nomadic” theater group and said it had to be, in order to survive.
As the centennial neared, the backdrop darkened. Arts funding has dried up. RCP does pay for certain jobs, like the stage manager, costume designer, scenic designer and lighting designer. But everyone else, including each board member, is a volunteer.
Along with Olson and the rest of the board, Krickmire has pledged to keep fighting.
“We were approaching 100 years old,” he said, “and I thought, along with Karen, ‘Damn it, we’re going to get it to this 100th year, at least — if not beyond.” rochestercommunityplayers.org
