The Michigan Daily-Thursday, September 6, 1979-Page D7 STRATFORD, DETROIT A2 OFFER ALTERNATIVES: City overflows with heatre opportunities I Stage fans have options galore (Continued from Page 6) ceed in Business . ., Applause, and Pippin. UAC group casting calls appear on billboards around campus. Like many cities of its size, Ann Ar- bor, has a Civic Theatre made up of townies of various stripes, mostly of professionals. AACT counts among its members professors, housewives, secretaries, a reporter for the Ann Ar-. bor News, and a retired priest. Unfor- tunately, the company is not the best for students to get roles, as its directors are known to be a rather Cliquish lot, not entirely favorably disposed to students and other transients. Still, it doesn't hurt to try, and Civic may be changing anyway. The group has. recently published advertisements calling for people to fill any and all of its vacancies. Very encouraging. Civic, by the way, has a remarkably wide range of genres in its repertoire. Along with common community theatre material like Rodgers and Hammer- stein musicals, Kaufman and Hart omedies, and the like, the company as recently done two shows by Stephen ondheim, one by Brecht, and one by he French playwright Giraudoux. Civic generally advertises its casting alls in the Ann Arbor News. In all but one of the last four years, one of the Guest Artist shows has had a predominantly or completely black cast. That will again be the case this year, as grad student Rhonnie ashington will direct a production. Black actors may also join- the mateurish but energetic Back Alley layers, which has staged such shows s No Place To Be Somebody and Short yes. Back Alley casts often have ac- ors ranging in years of training from our or more down to none at all. Aside from an occasional female- oriented Studio show, women have only the Women's Caucus, a rather nebulous, dirt-poor congregation of Theatre Department actresses, to meet their needs. The Caucus has staged two -- poorly attended shows on its in- fintesimal budget, and unless a great deal of moral and financial support is forthcoming, the future does not look bright. Local gay people can climb the stairs to Canterbury Loft on State St,., where an original gay musical revue, The Anita Bryant Follies, was staged in March, and where other such fare may be offered in the future. The radical contingent can check in with the Theatre Company of Ann Ar- bor, whose dozen members enact left wing notions in works of their own creation. THE ACTORS' Ensemble is an in- dependent troupe that stages one or two straight- dramatic works each semester. Once in a while, University depar- tments other than Theatre will produce plays of their own. Most widely adver- tised are Greek comedies put on by the Classic Department. The Department of Romance Languages occasionally stages Spanish plays or playlets, and one professor, Michel Motu, has done some interesting experimental theatre. The Residential College, about which you can read in various University literature, has its own theatre program and its own company, the R.C. Players. The Players are quite . non- discriminatory with regard to casting, so if Brecht and Chekhov are your bag, give them a ring. Incidentally, the Residential College is the only Ann Ar- bor group that ever does Shakespeare, outside of the Guest Artist people's bat- tle with the Bard each December. Would-be prima donnas will just have to content themselves singing along with their old Maria Callas records. The Music School's semesterly operas are all but impenetrable to outsiders. Gilbert and Sullivan aficionados, however, will be treated equitably by Ann Arbor's own G&S Society, whose casting calls are usually proclaimed on billboards in front of the Union. 1=1 IN-101 By JOSHUA PECK Local theatregoers