The Westmoreland Players Theater at 16217 Richmond Road (U.S. Route 360) in Callao has consistently been given accolades as the best performing arts company in eastern Virginia. The theater and its players are a “a true local gem.”
The theater and/or its players consistently show up for praise amid the many community theatre groups scattered around Virginia, as well as in reviews by visitors posted on online review websites and other media. Online reviewers describe the theater as having “stellar actors and actresses, stage lighting and sets” and laud the current location site’s “comfortable seats with an excellent view of the stage.”
Deathtrap. Photo courtesy of Chris Muldoon, SIX10 Media
Westmoreland Players describes itself simply as “a nonprofit amateur theater group,” formed in 1979 in Westmoreland County and moving to its current Callao location in Northumberland County in 2000. In the professional acting world, where actors may be in their prime in their teens or twenties and seen by some as “over the hill” by age 30, the theater offers slots for actors at any life stage.
Nancy Royall, who says she “married into the Northern Neck,” is a retiree who spent 30 years with the U.S. Department of Education and Richmond County Public Schools as a technology director and lives in Kinsale. Royall has been involved with the Westmoreland Players as both an actress and a director since its 1979 beginnings.
The group started innocently enough.
Royall recalls, “A group of local citizens decided they wanted to do a play, and it all started as a really focused community theater. We started in the old Cople School in Hague. Between 1979 and 1995, we presented plays in different area venues. I remember we did one play in a [local] restaurant.”
From humble beginnings, the Westmoreland Players has evolved into a respected local fixture. Supported by volunteers, patrons, donors, advertisers, CoBank, Chesapeake Wealth Management and the Lula & Mason Cole Charitable Trust, the organization is also supported by the Virginia Commission for the Arts, which receives support from the Virginia General Assembly and The National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.
Noises Off. Photo courtesy of Chris Muldoon, SIX10 Media
In May 2024, the group awarded its first annual college scholarship award of $2,000 to Christian Fields of Warsaw. The group describes Fields as “an indispensable volunteer both on stage and in the tech booth for several years.” The players plan to award scholarships each spring to one or more deserving student volunteers, with awards based on the quality and quantity of each student’s contribution to the theater’s mission. About 100 volunteers, with a core group of 40 volunteers per production, work together to present each play.
Two upcoming shows will round out the 2024 season: Run for Your Wife by Ray Cooney August 2-18, 2024 and Now and Then by Sean Graham November 1-17, 2024. Run For Your Wife is a madcap British farce about a cab driver with two wives and two homes trying to juggle his double life. Now and Then is a romantic comedy about the cost of choices we make and the people who make them with us.
During three weekends, three plays are presented each weekend. But before these public presentations, two months of rehearsals will have already taken place.
Current Westmoreland Players president Dan Beckhard spent 30 years as a U.S. Department of Justice attorney before his retirement. He has been visiting the Northern Neck since 2009 (“We have friends who retired on the water”), and he and his wife moved to Heathsville in 2018 “after stumbling across an ad” for a lot for sale where they could build a home.
“I walked into the theater once we moved here and got cast in a show,” Beckhard remembers. “I became enchanted with the place.”
He adds, “This has become an institution in the community. The Cole Family Trust originally built this building [we are in], and they give us a very generous grant annually. We have high-quality productions here. We can project background scenes—we are very technologically sophisticated. I think we can compete with professional theaters.”
Of Mice and Men. Photo courtesy of Chris Muldoon, SIX10 Media
Tickets for most shows are $17 for students and $25 for adults, with tickets to musicals running around $30, as the licensing fees that must be paid by the theater group are more expensive for musicals. Typically, most shows sell from 80 percent to 90 percent of the seats available or are sellouts. The company does a nine-show run over three weekends, for a total of nine shows presented per production. There is one paid employee: Marcia Fairman, part-time theater manager. Stipends are also paid to directors, producers, stage managers and music directors. Otherwise, all participants are completely volunteer positions.
Regarding plays chosen to be produced, Beckhard notes, “We are constrained sometimes due to licensing rights, and we need to make sure we can cast a particular show. Different shows require different ages and different [set] backgrounds. We also have maybe six people who can direct a play, plus we create all the sets for shows.”
In one recent play called Noises Off, a two-story set was required. But as Beckhard explains, “We had to make it a one and a half story set, and carpenters designed and built the set like a giant lazy susan. You need to imagine the show and make sure you have enough [stage] space for the actors.”
The play had been considered in the past but leadership had determined it was not practical to stage in the facility since it usually is performed on a two-story set with eight or nine doors. Set designer Bill Armstrong and skilled carpenters (all volunteers with no compensation other than the satisfaction of a job well-done) built a rotating set, with the set rotating around a single point in the center of the stage, moving smoothly on a complex system of wheels, casters and bearings.
The plays chosen to be produced are chosen by committee.
“What does the community want to see?” says Beckhard. “We want to appeal to younger audiences, too. The committee throws out ideas, and then it [the chosen play] is submitted to the Board of Directors for approval.”
Local favorite John Pitman is a Wicomico Church native who acted in his first play, Arsenic and Old Lace, in 2014. Virginia Tech horticulture major, he ran a landscaping business for many years in the area.
“We try to pick things that will make you think,” Pitman says. “It’s fun, but it is more of a challenging and rewarding feeling to get through it—the great feeling of accomplishment is why I do it.”
Beckhard, who says he likes “problem solving and relationships,” says his fellow actors also become family.
Royall, who says she likes directing better than acting, notes, “I have to live the show… it has to have substance in it. Working in the theater is a real mental exercise. And sometimes people who come to audition surprise you.”
Pitman opines, “Some people have a view of the theater as high-brow—we want you to have a good time. Some may think it’s ‘stuffy,’ but we want it to be accessible.”
Beckhard lauds the difference between seeing live theater and watching a film or TV show.
“There’s electricity with a live audience, who are watching live people portraying raw emotions from a few feet away. Some people think we just have the same cast over and over, but we are always trying to bring new people [onboard].”
The Westmoreland Players also work with the nonprofit Missoula Children’s Center for the Performing Arts in Missoula, Montana every summer to offer a special summer program for kids. As part of Missoula’s mission, they bring the arts to the theater via two professional actors/directors, 20 focused rehearsal hours and can accommodate up to 60 cast members to cast each play. Children ages five years to 17 years can participate in the summer session.
“They provide the scenery, the script, and the costumes—in 2024 we had 54 kids participate and the [resulting] shows sold out,” Royall says. “We also did workshops for the kids, and the technical group taught them how to program lights. There’s a reasonable fee to participate in the one-week program, and financial assistance is available.”
The Art Deco-style posh lobby area, which features walls of framed posters from previous productions, a snack area with tables and chairs seating and a bar, lends a sense of sophisticated elegance to the theater itself. A massive round mosaic tile display in the lobby was donated by artist Patricia Curlin.
With nearly 122 productions under its belt since 1979, The Westmoreland Players continue to delight audiences with live theater presentations. Regarding the future, Pitman says he would like to see “more younger people becoming involved” with the group, while Royall hopes for “a more diverse audience” as well. Beckhard emphasizes that the organization welcomes more volunteers, adding, “We can find things for people to do.”
For more information about The Westmoreland Players or for tickets to an upcoming production: www.westmorelandplayers.org
Telephone: (804)529-9345