| Business Address:
Riverside Community Players, Inc. 4026 Fourteenth Street Riverside, California 92501-4003 Tel: (951) 369-1200 Fax: (951) 369-1261 Email address: rcporg@earthlink.net Please contact the box office for reservations. We cannot
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| Mission Statement:
To create and perpetuate, through community involvement and expression, high quality theater accessible to Riverside and surrounding communities, while providing opportunities for education and fellowship. |
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| History:
Our story begins one day in January 1925 when Janet Scott gathered together a handful of eager amateurs to produce plays under the sponsorship of the Riverside Women's Club. Such an interest was shown by actors and audience alike that a move was made toward independence and a more ambitious program. In September of that year twenty-seven charter members, led by Janet Scott and James Coleman Scott, met to elect officers and officially launch our organization, The Community Players. Our first productions were presented at the Loring Theater, later renamed the Golden State. We then moved to the high school for a few performances until the new Central Junior High School was completed. We were resolved to have a home of our own. Our friends and neighbors in Riverside contributed over four thousand dollars to purchase the abandoned school building at Twelfth and Almond. In this remodeled building we opened with the "Queen's Husband", May 30, 1930. These were the days of the "Great Depression". An audience was hard to find, and even the players faltered on occasion, but the doors were never closed. Janet Scott, our driving force, returned to her career in radio and left the Inland Empire, it was now up to the younger members to take up where Janet had left off. The long awaited "silver lining" revealed itself to us in 1937. An affiliation with the Riverside Adult Recreation Department provided a director and students for acting and set construction. With the start of the war trouble again overshadowed us. By mutual agreement we severed relations with the schools; our director and actors went to war; our audience lacking gasoline for travel could not make it to performances. There were, however, a stalwart few who remained keeping the doors open and the lights burning. With peace came prosperity. Productions often played to more than two thousand people. Then came a new problem. The School Board, who owned the land on which our building stood, has a need to build a new Administration Building and wanted the land for parking spaces. It was 1950 and we were homeless again. The Players accepted an invitation from the City Recreation Department to move with them to a small theater in the old School Administration Building at Ninth and Lemon known as the "Playbox". After two years we found ourselves, once again, moving out to make room for more parking spaces. After a season on the stage at Riverside Community College, the Players again investigated the possibility of building our own theater. The "intimate" or "circle" theater was becoming popular, and it could be built for much less than a traditional proscenium stage theater. Through the sale of Patron Memberships, along with funds already in the kitty, we were able to complete our new Playhouse in September 1953. Since that time we have added the Green room, the Dressing room, the "Lewis" (Props) room, and the Patio.
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