STEVE DUNKELBERGER: ECCENTRICS WILL ROAM THE STREETS >>>

You might not know that more than a dozen theater companies will hit town next week.

Tacoma is playing host to AACTFest ’09 beginning June 22. It is an event that will bring some of the best talent community theater around the nation can produce for a festival of theater and all things performance art.

This is a rare event that will likely not be seen locally again in your lifetime. The community theater conference and performance contest hasn’t been held anywhere on the West Coast in the last 25 years and has been avoiding Tacoma since 1926.

“Two years ago in Charlotte, (N.C.) there were less than a dozen or so companies exhibiting,” said AACTFest ’09 co-chair Judy Cullen. “We are pleased that AACTFestâ€"Tacoma will have nearly double that including some national companies who will be exhibiting products making their West Coast debut.” 

Tacoma Musical Playhouse and The Washington State Community Theatre Association are the official organizers of the event, but the real work falls to the countless volunteers who will make the festival the center of the theater world.

“It will be the best of the best,” Cullen said. “This is a big deal â€" a really big deal. I think it is a great opportunity for people who patronize community theater to get reenergized about what community theater can be.”

Post-conference success would mean more energy and patrons of local theater, not to mention better productions and stronger acting talent in the local thespian pool after conference goers get ideas of what theater organizations around the nation are producing on their stages.

“It is really easy for people locally to feel disconnected with community theater,” Cullen said.

The former artistic director of Tacoma Little Theatre knows all too well about the financial troubles experienced by local community theaters, not to mention the death of Tacoma Actors Guild, twice, and the overall slump in arts appreciation brought by the economic downturn.

The event is expected to bring more than 600 performers and other theater types from around the country to celebrate the power of community theater and to learn from each other to raise the bar for their own theater programs through performances and workshops at the Broadway Center for the Performing Arts and other venues around the City of Destiny.

The performances will be open to the public, with tickets being sold online as well as at the door.

The festival will run June 22-27. Information about AACTFest can be found at www.aactfest09. org. The site includes a list of shows scheduled for the conference as well as podcasts and timelines of the various workshops and shows on the playbill.

Photo: How to Talk Minnesotan: The Music will be staged by the Aberdeen Community Theatre.