CCP’s musical revue seeks to raise funds for permanent home

The Carmel Community Players will celebrate its 30th birthday Aug.16.

A nice gift would be a new home. The acting company has not had a permanent home since it had to leave Clay Terrace in 2018. 

Carmel Community Players will hold a two-night fundraiser featuring a musical revue of the works of Jerry Herman called “Jerry’s Girls” Aug. 18-19 at Woodland Country Club of Carmel in the grand ballroom. The reception starts at 6:30 p.m. with the performance at 7:30 p.m. each night. There also will be a silent auction and prizes. Proceeds benefit the CCP Capital Fund.

“For the next 30 years, we hope we only have one new home,” said longtime CCP board member Rich Phipps.

Since April 2018, after the lease was terminated at Clay Terrace, CCP has performed in four different venues,17 productions at The Cat in Carmel, four productions at the Ivy Tech Auditorium in Noblesville, three productions at the Switch Theatre in Fishers and one at the Carmel Friends Church 

CCP was issued a certificate of incorporation as a nonprofit corporation on Aug. 16, 1993, by Indiana Secretary of State Joe Hogsett, now Indianapolis mayor. CCP performed its first production, “Once Upon a Mattress, later that month at what was then Carmel Junior High School.

Phipps, a Carmel resident who has been on the board since 2009 and is CCP treasurer, attended the first public meeting of the Carmel Community Players in early 1993 before it was incorporated. 

“I went to the meeting expecting this group would be saying they are going to put on a show, but they were much more ambitious than that,” Phipps said. “Right from the get-go, they wanted to put together complete theatrical seasons with productions of all ages with musicals, comedies and youth shows. The emphasis was really on community.

“It’s not just the name, it was fundamental to the whole identity of the organization. CCP people started participating in everything from the CarmelFest Parade, Carmel International Arts Festival and they sang at the farmers market.”

In the past 30 years, CCP has performed 137 shows, along with more than 30 cabarets, talent shows and fundraisers. 

There were 23 productions, all plays, at 15th 1st Street NE in Carmel, a 60-seat venue fondly referred to as “Studio 15,” Phipps said. 

There were 25 productions, mostly musicals, at the former Carmel Performing Arts Center at 575 West Carmel Dr., which is now Piano Solutions.

Then there were 46 productions at Clay Terrace’s Playhouse, which had approximately 120 seats. The first one was presented in October 2009 and the final one began in February 2018.

“(Clay Terrace) was almost like a permanent home, but we always knew it was year to year on the lease,” he said.

There are several advantages to having a permanent home.

“Some directors only really want to direct shows where they can release on location,” Phipps said. “To pick up a show from a rehearsal site and only move in a couple days before opening night, it limits what you can do. It limits what kind of set you can have. You can’t be as ambitious in your vision of the show.”

The Cat, for instance, has a smaller stage so it limits the cast size.

“From an audience perspective, it gets confusing where you are going to be,” he said. “We lose patrons that way because senior citizens, in particular, might not want to drive all over the place to try to find us.”

Phipps said it’s hard to find directors if they don’t know the production site.

“I’ve only directed a few shows, but I’d never want to direct a show without knowing where we were going to put it on because it impacts everything in terms of the staging and how much room you have and what kind of set you have,” he said. “That’s probably the biggest driver along with controlling your own destiny in putting on the shows when you want to put them on.”

“Jerry’s Girls” features six women with ties to CCP and Herman’s shows, such as “Hello, Dolly!” and “Mame.”

Phipps’ wife Vickie is one of the six performers along with Susan Smith from Carmel. The others are Fishers residents Diane Tsao and Jill O’Malia, Heather Hansen of Zionsville and Georgeanna Teipen ofGreenfield.

Tickets are $75 or $500 for a table of eight. For more, visit carmelplayers.org.