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| - My girlfriend and I went and checked out the Bartell Theatre last week for the viewing of "Into the Woods".
The general atmosphere of the Bartell theatre is definitely community. There are friendly neighborhood folks there handling the greeting, the ticket sales and the concessions. The building is a little old, but that adds to the atmosphere of the community theatre.
The concessions were candy bars, soda and water, and some other snack type foods. They were a little high priced (1$ for a candy bar, 2$ for a soda) but that is where they most likely get some of their funding from. I was happy to pay this to the very kind lady doing the concession stand.
There are at least two theatres that I could find. (One playing ours and another playing a bunch of shorts.) Ours was decently sized. About 100 seats or so. I asked the usher which seats were the best and she said that they were all pretty good, it was personal preference. We sat in the back section near the middle. The play began with the director of the community theatre asking for more donations.
The viewing of play itself was quite nice. We were close enough to see the emotion on the actors faces, but not so close that we couldn't take in the whole scene. The lighting was very good. There was a "orchestra" in the back that was performing during the play, but they were lit only enough to just barely see.
The audio was also very good. I didn't have any problems hearing the actors speak or sing. The music was also "hearable", but not overpowering either. I also didn't hear any outside noises from the lobby or surrounding buildings.
The play itself was good. The voice acting was performed well and the singing was very good. There was some slight overacting from a couple of the characters, but overall it was a very good performance.
The set design worked well, it added to the feeling of the woods and, as mentioned before, it allowed some views of the orchestra without it being the center of attention.
I will definitely be checking this place out in the future for more plays and I definitely recommend it.
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