ACT

Founded in 1936, Topeka Civic Theatre & Academy is the oldest continuously running community dinner theatre in the country. In July of 1999, TCTA completed construction on our new home in the former Gage Elementary School. The school was built around 1929 and is rich in architecture and design.

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The theatre has achieved much recognition since finding a permanent home where its creative energies could, at last, focus on production values. In 1975, Managing Director Don Bachmann’s production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest won the State Community Theatre Festival and advanced to the Regional in Omaha. In 1979, Bachmann’s production of The Good Doctor, starring Charley Oldfather, went all the way to Nationals, won it, and represented the United States at an international amateur theatre festival the following spring in Dundalk, Ireland. In 1981, P.K. Worley’s production of Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris won the state festival and was performed at the regional in Topeka. Terrance McKerrs took two productions to Nationals, I’m Getting My Act Together and Taking It on the Road in 1985, which won third place, and The Taffetas in 1991, which won second place, while McKerrs won the “Best Director” award.

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