About Us:
The Frisco Community Theatre owes its start to Jack Scott. In 1984 Scott approached Doug Zambiasi, the Frisco Community Education director, with the idea of doing a show. Scott said the idea of forming a community theatre was not necessarily the original intention but was "to do a major musical just to see what would happen".
Scott and Zambiasi called a planning meeting for all those interested in doing a show. They were the only participants in the first meeting.
Undaunted, the two visited a community theatre in Burkett (where Scott was born) just to see how it was done in another community. They returned to Frisco and called another meeting in August 1984. They were encouraged by an attendance of 25 or 30 people.
Among the attendees at the second meeting was long-time Frisco resident Judith Reedy. She said Scott's plan to form a theatre group, when at the time Frisco's population was under 5000, was very innovative.
Over the course of a few more meetings, Scott was named executive manager and a board of directors was formed that included Scott, Zambiasi, Judith Reedy, Edmund Burke and Catherine Fowler. The Frisco Community Theatre was adopted as the official name and the group decided the first show performed would be Meredith Wilson's musical, The Music Man.
Reedy remembers, "We were so naive. We didn't know that you had to have over 65 people in The Music Man, that you had to have this huge amount of costumes, that you had to have all this lighting and sound, and we thought we could do all this in the gym, alternating practice time with the color guard, basketball players and everybody else". Despite all the hurdles the first show was a rousing success!
That first production opened April 12, 1984 in the Frisco High School gymnasium.
After the first 3 productions the group began to realize it needed a permanent home and a relationship with the City of Frisco was formed. With the help of then mayor, John Clanton, FCT was allowed to use the old youth center on Camellia Lane. The building was built in the late 50's as a center for youth activities and had not been used for some time. It was originally an open-air pavilion and the walls were added later.
The City spent about $30,000 to make the building habitable and FCT members donated their time and labor. The City donated the utilities and maintenance of the building. We still occupy that facility and all our productions are performed there thanks to the ongoing support of the City of Frisco.
Children's productions have been a yearly part of FCT since the second production when FCT did the children's classic The Wizard of Oz. In 1991, FCT awarded its first $1000 scholarship to a collage bound Frisco student. Julia Stulting was the first recipient of a yearly award that continues to this day.
