Everybody loves to be entertained. What’s the alternative? Boredom.

In ancient times, you had gladiators face off in arenas. As settlers traveled across the new frontiers in the 19^th century, they told stories and sang songs during the quieter times of their journeys. Nowadays, entertainment can be found in multiple forms.

However, there’s one classic form of entertainment that continues on even to this day—the magical world of theater. The concept of multiple people coming together and telling a story live through spoken word, music and more for a crowd of people still survives the test of time.

I was reminded of this yet again when I went to a local high school and took photos of the rehearsal for Seussical the Musical for a newspaper article. It’s a lot of fun to watch the younger generations embrace theater, prepare to become other individuals and tell the stories crafted from an incredible literary mind.

It’s been a long time since I’ve taken to the stage myself and been someone else. The last role I was played was the title character from You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown. Being the round-headed kid from the Peanuts comics I grew up was a big thrill. I still have the yellow shirt with the zigzag stripe.

A love of theater is something I share with my sweetheart, Todd. Like me, he has also acted, including a stint in New York City as Mark from the musical Rent. A couple of years ago, we traveled to Marinette to see the Coastal Players’ rendition of Rent, and it was well worth the 75-minute trip. Todd got to relive his glory days, and I got to see it for the first time.

In the 13 years we’ve been together, each year has included multiple trips to community theaters for shows. Some of them are in black box theaters. Some are in big performance halls. Others are in churches converted to theaters. Musicals, comedies, mysteries and the occasional melodrama beckon me and Todd to come watch and be entertained.

When I took Todd in 2024 to Arizona to see where I grew up, among the priorities was taking in a couple of shows, as Prescott, the city adjacent to my hometown of Chino Valley, is well known for being a performing arts community.

One show we attended was a ballet for The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, a first for both of us. More exciting than the new experience was where it took place, the classic Elks Theatre, first built in 1905. I remember going on school trips to see shows when I was a kid and being impressed with the balcony and the box seats. It had been closed for many years but was restored and reopened in 2016, and I loved seeing it again.

I also took Todd to the performing arts center at Yavapai College for a jazz concert called Too Cool for Yule. My most vivid memory of that theater when I went to college was dressing up in renaissance attire with one of the choirs and singing a song called Banquet Fugue. Much had changed in the 25 or so years since I’d performed there, including the fact that ticketholders for shows had to go through metal-detecting wands to get in.

The only venue we didn’t get to see a show was the Prescott Fine Arts Center, which included a theater and art gallery inside a former Catholic church. The reason we didn’t go was because the organization running the theater went belly up, and the stage went dark. The good news is another organization took over, and the shows go on again.

My theater history doesn’t end with acting and singing. Writing plays was a big part of my teen years, and I got lucky enough to have one of them produced by my high school in my junior year. It was always fun to bring other people’s words to life, but the opportunity to do so with my own was delicious.

The last play I wrote was around 2009, when I wrote Grandma’s House of Waffles, which took fairy tale characters and put them in a waffle house in peril. A few years ago, I tried shopping it around with the local theaters and didn’t have much success. The dream still lives, though, to see my words brought to life by thespians.

In a world of movies and television, there’s nothing like live theater. If you get the chance to take in a show, it’ll be an experience like no other.