Contact Information
724 Market Street
Parkersburg, WV 26101
304-485-1300
Links
https://www.actors-guild.com/
https://www.facebook.com/ActorsGuildofParkersburg/
Description
The Actors Guild has been Parkersburg’s community theatre for the past 65 years. Each season the Guild mounts seven main stage productions including musicals, dramas, and comedies. In recent years these productions have included such hits as “Mary Poppins”, “Mamma Mia”, “To Kill a Mockingbird”, “Fiddler on the Roof”, and “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”. Hundreds of dedicated volunteers work each year to produce these shows as actors, directors, musical directors, choreographers, and the entire production crew. We also have one of the finest costume shops in the area with hundreds of hand-made costumes in storage, and our props vault is filled with vintage items.
The Actors Guild also is the home of Guild Builders, our youth theatre program. We conduct yearly workshops for students in 4th through 9th grades. The program runs ten weeks and culminates in a three-performance original production. The workshops focus on music, dance, and acting. The Guild Builders also perform a full main stage production each year. Recent shows have included “Madagascar, Jr”, “Aladdin, Jr”, and “The Little Mermaid, Jr”. The students not only perform, but also learn to stage manage, run lights, sound, makeup, and work backstage in all areas. Teen Guild Builders is made up of students from 9th grade and up who also perform full productions. Recently they did a production of Stephen Sondheim’s “Sweeney Todd”.
HISTORY: The Guild began in the mid-fifties with a handful of volunteers who wanted to put on plays and put up their own money to get started. By the early sixties they settled into their first home in an old laundry with a tiny stage and 130 seats. After 14 seasons there, they were able to purchase a recently vacated building downtown which had once actually been a theatre in the 1920s before being converted into a department store. Money was raised to turn it back into the beautiful theatre where the Guild still resides. For the past several years extensive renovations have been made to the infrastructure of the building and most recently a refurbishing of the theatre itself.
