Laughter Raises Serious Issues About Athletics

It's too late to catch it at the Open Space Cafe Theatre, but if you were lucky, maybe you saw "Rounding Third" before the show closed last Saturday (July 25th).

Two men with very different philosophies about what should matter most for young people who play sports are forced by circumstances to coach the same baseball team. Veteran coach Don knows that the only way that playing baseball can really be any fun is for the team to win. To win, he understands that he must select the players who already possess the most positive potential. Michael has very little experience with baseball and has never coached before, but for a variety of reasons, he's interested in doing so now. Fate leads Michael to become Don's assistant coach. You couldn't ask for a better mismatch of personalities, and in scene after scene, the stark differences in these two coaches' approaches and views jump out at the audience.

With some recent local events, a more timely play couldn't have been selected to help us examine our own personal views and attitudes about youth athletics.

Ken Ashford and Scott Stevens did an outstanding job of capturing the spirit of these two coaches, and their constant back-and-forth dialogue provided just about non-stop laughs. The lines are well-written for these characters, but Ashford and Stevens made sure that they were delivered in ways that guarantee their maximum impact (laughter!) on audience members.

I made it to the closing night performance with a group of 10 others, and we were thoroughly entertained. For that evening's performance, just about all the theatre's seats were taken. I was told that a few other nights didn't enjoy the numbers in the audience that this show and its performers deserved, and more than anything, that's an unrealized loss for anyone who didn't get a chance to see "Rounding Third."

The play doesn't ultimately answer the question of which philosophy is the superior one, but it gives both coaches a fair shot at making their cases for their respective views.

Guilford County has several venues for great theatre, and if you're not taking advantage of these opportunities to see live theatre in your own backyard, you probably don't realize what you're missing.

To get a glimpse of "Rounding Third," check out the Open Space Cafe Theatre's blog posts about this production (with photos included!): here's one, another one (with a Greensboro Grasshopper tie-in), a third one, and the final one.