Article Contributed on: 2/18/2009 1:00:12 PM
Charley Ault sits in the front row of his small community theater Feb. 17, coaching three actresses on stage as they rehearse lines for an upcoming comedy called
Beauty, Brains and Personality.
Speaking with the crisp, loud voice of a veteran stage performer, Ault directs one of the women in the cast to focus on a particular line in the play ... something to give it a little more oomph.
"Right here, think of what you want to say before you say it, to help give that line a different beat, if that makes sense," Ault says. "OK, let's go ahead and get rolling."
Tonight's rehearsal is old hat for Ault, the longtime Arvada resident who heads up Arvada Festival Playhouse, 5665 Olde Wadsworth Blvd., a community theater tucked away in Olde Town Arvada. The 62-year-old director/actor/producer/business owner estimates he's directed more than 200 plays since he first got involved in theater in 1951.
With the help of his wife,
Donna, Ault opened the Arvada Festival Playhouse here in 1990 and the two have been filling it with the sounds of laughter ever since.
"Over the years, we have done a variety of different shows," Ault says. "And in that time, we've come to the conclusion that people like and need to laugh. So we've pretty much focused on comedies. This is our particular niche. We don't do musicals. Our expertise is the spoken word."
Community theater runs in Ault's bloodline. His father,
Charles Ault, started a theater company in 1936 and ran small productions out of the Denver Woman's Club at 1437 Glenarm Place for more than 20 years.
Ault was immediately drawn to the glitz and glamour of the stage and did whatever he could to help his father's business. Back in the days before robo-calls, Ault would call local residents and give a methodical 18-second sales pitch to help sell tickets to shows.
"I started selling tickets over the phone when I was 11 years old," he says. "I would cold call after school from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m."
Ault began taking over management of the theater company -- dubbed The Players Guild -- in the late '60s. The company ran productions out of a number of venues in Denver before finally settling in Arvada.
Even after all these years in the community, Ault says the theater company faces the same problems other small theaters face -- namely how to get more attention. To this day, Ault bumps into local residents who have no idea his theater even exists.
"That's the biggest challenge, getting the word out," Ault says with a hearty laugh. "Even though we've been here all along for the past 73 years."