By B.J. Coleman

A theater company in the performing arts since 1937, even a volunteer troupe, will not go dark, silent or homeless for very long.

The Lamplighters Community Theatre group proved that with a grand re-opening at the company’s newly remodeled theater space in the shopping center at Severin and Amaya drives. The company performed its last permanently housed show in August 2006 at the Ben Polack Art Center, before it was demolished.

The Lamplighters group’s new performing home, still awaiting a few final touches, is comfortably spacious but intimate for the audience, staff and actors. Three former retail spaces in the strip mall were transformed into the theater area, adjacent offices and lobby. Construction work was completed the week before performances began. With a seating capacity of around 90, including cutout areas for wheelchair viewers, the proximity of the seats to the stage invites audience members into immediate involvement with the actors’ interactions beyond the meager proscenium arch.

The current show is “Same Time, Next Year,” by playwright Bernard Slade. This deceptively simple but engaging two-act romantic comedy tells the tale of a 26-year adulterous love affair between a New Jersey man and a California woman, who meet at the same coastal inn in Northern California once a year for a weekend assignation. After a happenstance encounter at dinner, George, on business travel, and Doris, supposedly on a religious retreat, awaken in bed together on a February morning in 1951. Confused but committed to their overwhelming mutual attraction, they agree to meet again in a year. The story of their lives sporadically touching each February, as their interpersonal connection endures through the decades of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, also traces the charged, changing relationship roles between women and men over those volatile years.

Michelle DeFrancesco, as Doris, and Daniel R. Sky, as George, portray a winsome pair of lovers, aging gracefully through the play’s end year of 1975. The background music, heard during stage blackouts, also conveys the development of evolving social attitudes during the mid-20th century. Despite a couple of muffed lines at the Nov. 22 performance, the actors recovered nicely, with nary a break in delivery tempo. And their performances for these difficult interactive roles were on point, ably enacting a comprehensible combination of edginess and poignancy in such an unusual love relationship. The actors depicted very well their characters’ alternation between challenging each other and being tender with one another.

This show is a couple of hours of good, relaxing entertainment, fun but thought-provoking. The play will elicit nostalgia for people who remember those years, and even those who do not quite catch the references to contemporaneous cultural figures such as Barry Goldwater and Ernest Borgnine will appreciate the show for the skill of the acting and of the overall production.

Mark Loveless is serving in the dual roles of president of the theater organization and director of the current show. He notes that the new performance venue — steps away from the Amaya Drive trolley station and just off the Fletcher Parkway exit from state Route 125 — was chosen for its accessible location. The ample on-site parking available for weekend theatergoers is another advantage of the new location, Loveless said.

Plans for the theater company will continue as before, with five productions per theater season annually, usually two comedies, one drama, one mystery and one musical. Other intervening offerings will include a children’s theater program, dramatic readings for the blind, and training opportunities for people wanting to learn about the technical, artistic and administrative aspects of the craft of theater production.

The nonprofit group, which relies on unpaid volunteers, is still seeking contributors, members and performers to complete finishing touches and fill new roles. Upcoming auditions for discovering new talent will be held Dec. 3 and 4.

Lamplighters members say the current play and the new theater itself are dedicated “in loving memory” of Gerry Reeves, who served as the troupe’s publicity manager and videographer from 2002 until his recent passing. Several members provided donations in his memory on behalf of the building efforts.

The goals of Lamplighters Community Theatre are to serve La Mesa and the surrounding areas with community-oriented theater experiences, offering quality live entertainment for both audience members and for the theater company volunteers who freely give their time and talents for the shows. The group also intends to provide a training facility for those interested in learning the theater trade, to assist all participants with opportunities to pursue their personal theatrical goals, to create a financially stable business environment for the theater, to increase the numbers in the audience and among volunteers, to boost the overall theater environment in San Diego County, and “to have fun and enjoy the experience.”

The group was originally founded in June 1937 as The La Mesa Little Theatre. Other names billed on the marquee included La Mesa Community Theatre, Town and Country Players, Foothill Players, La Mesa On The Aisle, and La Mesa Players. Lamplighters became part of the theater company’s name in 1972. The major historical milestone was the company’s incorporation as The Lamplighters Community Theatre on Nov. 1, 1976.

Lamplighters Community Theatre can be contacted by calling Barbara Eisele at 619-448-1926 or the box office at 619-286-3685. The current show runs through Dec. 14, with weekend performances on Friday and Saturday nights at 8 p.m. and Sunday afternoons at 2 p.m. A short-run production of a Readers Theatre original play by David Wiener, entitled “Louis and Irving, Movie Moguls,” is slated for the middle of January. The theater is located at 5915 Severin Dr. More information is also available at lamplighterslamesa.com.

—B.J. Coleman is a freelance writer who covers the San Diego region. Reach her by email at [email protected].