Watson says volunteers keep community theater going in Flatwoods
BROWNSVILLE – Ernie Watson knows the truth about community theater. “Without the volunteers, we’d be nobody… We’d have nothing,” Watson said. “They come in, they help with the scenery and the costumes and everything else that needs done … and a lot of the time they play in the shows as well.”
That’s just the way he likes it.
Watson, a graduate California State Teacher’s College – now California University of Pennsylvania – with a degree in communications and theater learned the ropes from the bottom up.
“I started out in college in pre-med but wasn’t happy,” he said. “And then I decided I would rather be semi-happy and OK than rich and miserable.”
He’s been involved in theater ever since. From set design to choreography to costuming and acting, he can do it all.
“You do theater because you like it … no … because you love it, not because you want to get rich,” he said.
In 1985, he met Michael Rohlf and together they staged a two-year run of musicals at the State Theatre in Uniontown using local talent. They called themselves the State Theatre Players.
“We did a lot of Rogers and Hamerstein,” said Watson, remembering.
After the demise of the State Theatre Players, Watson bounced around free-lancing wherever and whenever he could. He traveled from Fayette County to Pittsburgh and back. He always had his hand in something theatrical.
In 2000, Watson joined forces with friend, Rob Ross of Weirton, W.Va., and started the Flatwoods Production Co., and they have been staging plays at the Curfew Grange ever since.
“Rob does the technical design, the scenery and the special effects,” Watson said.
Ross, a graduate of the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, also takes care of the Web site and sometimes he even acts.
Laurie Watson, Ernie Watson’s new wife, does costuming and handles box office duties.
“She has a background in nursing,” Ernie Watson said, but it was her interest in the theater that drew them together.
“The Grange is located at the corner of Route 201 and Buena Vista Road in Flatwoods,” Ernie Watson said.
In the meantime, Rohlf, who met his wife, Tricia, while doing a show at the State, married and started a family. Michael Rohlf is a counselor at the Pennsylvania Department of Welfare. Tricia is a guidance counselor at Brownsville Area Senior High School.
The Watsons, Ross and the Rohlf family will join forces presenting the musical “The Secret Garden” based on the story written by Frances Hodgson Burnett. It will be presented at 8 p.m. today, 8 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday at the Curfew Grange.
“It is a major musical with 32 musical sequences,” Ernie Watson said.
Michael Rohlf said it best: “The family that ‘plays’ together stays together.”
He asked that emphasis be placed on “plays.”
For the Flatwoods production of “The Secret Garden,” the Rohlf family is doing just that.
The entire family is involved.
Lexie, 11, will play Mary Lennox the lead in the musical being staged at the Curfew Grange Hall May 26-28.
Younger sister Kara, 9, will portray Colin, a young invalid boy.
While older brother, Jonathan, 14, will play a secondary role, Lt. Shaw, in this play. He has played Jesus in “Godspell” and is preparing for a Civic Light Opera play that is already scheduled.
All the Rohlf children attend acting classes at the CLO Academy in Pittsburgh several evenings a week and on Saturdays.
Acting seems to come naturally for them. And so it should.
Their parents Michael and Tricia, who have been acting since the 1970s, met on the stage of the State Theatre in Uniontown back in the 1980s.
“They may not be the best actors I know, but they can really hold their own,” said their proud father about his children.
“We love working with kids, especially our own,” Michael Rohlf said.
They have even done stage work with the students at Brownsville Area Senior High School.
“We have a lot of fun doing that,” he said.
For more information about tickets or pricing for “The Secret Garden” or to learn about the dinner theater packages offered, contact the Curfew Grange at 724-785-6896 or visit the Web site at www.fptheater.com/contact.html.
If interested in auditioning for future productions or for other information, visit the Web site.