Oddfellows Playhouse is a non-profit youth theater in

Middletown, Connecticut Middletown is a city located in Middlesex County, Connecticut, United States, Located along the Connecticut River, in the central part of the state, it is south of Hartford, Connecticut, Hartford. In 1650, it was incorporated by English settler ...

. The playhouse provides programing to students of all ages, ranging from classic plays to circus skills. The organization serves over 1,200 young people annually and is Connecticut's largest and most active year-round youth theater.

History

Oddfellows Playhouse was founded in 1975 by four

Wesleyan University Wesleyan University ( ) is a Private university, private liberal arts college, liberal arts university in Middletown, Connecticut. Founded in 1831 as a Men's colleges in the United States, men's college under the auspices of the Methodist Epis ...

students with a commitment to serve students of all backgrounds. The name Oddfellows comes from the initial building the playhouse occupied, which was owned by the

Independent Order of Odd Fellows The Independent Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF) is a non-political and non-sectarian international fraternal order of Odd Fellowship. It was founded in 1819 by Thomas Wildey in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Evolving from the Order of Odd ...

. In 1996, the playhouse bought and renovated a 10,000 square foot building on Washington Street in Middletown, with extensive help from the City of Middletown. In 2017, ownership of the building the playhouse occupies was transferred to the City of Middletown, who granted Oddfellows Playhouse a 25-year lease at a rate of $1 per year. This was intended to stabilize the playhouse's financial problems as well as expand programing for city youth.

Programing

Each year, the playhouse puts on two stage plays for each of their two age brackets: Junior Repertory Company (ages 12–14) and Teen Repertory Company (ages 14–20). Past shows have included classics such as

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

A Midsummer Night's Dream ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'' is a comedy written by William Shakespeare 1595 or 1596. The play is set in Athens, and consists of several subplots that revolve around the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta. One subplot involves a conflict amon ...

, plays such as those by

Washington Irving Washington Irving (April 3, 1783 – November 28, 1859) was an American short-story writer, essayist, biographer, historian, and diplomat of the early 19th century. He is best known for his short stories "Rip Van Winkle" (1819) and " The Legen ...

, and musicals such as

Urinetown ''Urinetown: The Musical'' is a satirical comedy musical that premiered in 2001, with music by Mark Hollmann, lyrics by Hollmann and Greg Kotis, and book by Kotis. It satirizes the legal system, capitalism, social irresponsibility, populism, burea ...

. In addition to the stage shows, the playhouse also conducts a children's

circus A circus is a company of performers who put on diverse entertainment shows that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, dancers, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, magicians, ventriloquists, and unicyclist ...

camp each summer. Skills taught include

clowning A clown is a person who performs comedy and arts in a state of open-mindedness using physical comedy, typically while wearing distinct makeup or costuming and reversing folkway-norms. History The most ancient clowns have been found in t ...

acrobatics Acrobatics () is the performance of human feats of balance, agility, and motor coordination. Acrobatic skills are used in performing arts, sporting events, and martial arts. Extensive use of acrobatic skills are most often performed in acro ...

dance Dance is a performing art form consisting of sequences of movement, either improvised or purposefully selected. This movement has aesthetic and often symbolic value. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoir ...

stilt-walking Stilts are poles, posts or pillars that allow a person or structure to stand at a height above the ground. In flood plains, and on beaches or unstable ground, buildings are often constructed on stilts to protect them from damage by water, wav ...

juggling Juggling is a physical skill, performed by a juggler, involving the manipulation of objects for recreation, entertainment, art or sport. The most recognizable form of juggling is toss juggling. Juggling can be the manipulation of one object o ...

, unicycling,

art Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...

and

puppetry Puppetry is a form of theatre or performance that involves the manipulation of puppets – inanimate objects, often resembling some type of human or animal figure, that are animated or manipulated by a human called a puppeteer. Such a perform ...

. The camp lasts five weeks and culminates in a live show with over 120 performers and a live band.

Awards

Over the course of its 47-year history, Oddfellows Playhouse has been given numerous accolades. They were named "Community Champion" for youth services by Citizens Bank in 2003.

CPTV Connecticut Public Television (CPTV) is the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) member network for the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is owned by Connecticut Public Broadcasting, a community-based non-profit organization that holds the licenses fo ...

featured the playhouse on a special called "art.culture.life". They were given an "Award of Excellence" in 1998 from The New England Theatre Conference. The

NAACP The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E.&nb ...

gave the playhouse a "Community Service Award" in 1999. And in 2012, the playhouse was given an award from the

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...

. Oddfellows has also been named as one of "Connecticut’s Best Children’s Theaters" by Connecticut Magazine from 2013 to 2019.

References

{{reflist Theatres in Connecticut 1975 establishments in Connecticut