2026 is a year of change for the Community Players. The century-old amateur theater company is temporarily closing its doors this week for a long-anticipated renovation.
The theater is getting new seats and a more accessible floor plan for audiences, but the players aren’t going to stop doing theater in the meantime.
Waiting in the Wings, a new play by New York-based playwright Tony Manzo, opens next week at Illinois Art Station in Normal, the first of three satellite locations hosting Community Players this spring.
Director Rich Tinaglia said the change of venue adds a layer of complexity to putting on a show. He’s been rehearsing with five actors at Community Players’ current theater in Bloomington and moves Thursday into the unconventional performance venue across town.
“The actors are anxious to get into the space,” he said. “Where’s the bathroom? How do I get on stage? How do I get off stage? Where do I dress? All these things are in the actors’ minds. And when we get to the place where we’re doing it, these questions get answered.”
Tinaglia moved to Bloomington-Normal nearly 10 years ago for a two-year insurance industry project that turned into a permanent stay.
He studied political science, theater and dance at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and became a SAG/AFTRA member, working as a professional actor in Chicago theaters, on commercials and in films.
“The theater community and scene here in Bloomington-Normal is wonderful; it’s very healthy,” Tinaglia said. “It’s alive. For a town this size, it’s wonderful.”
Tinaglia dove into the theater scene, with recent credits including Nomad Theatre's Order in the Court, Heartland Theatre Company's The Minutes and Community Players' One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
And he had some connections to Bloomington-Normal even before choosing to live here. He cavorted with Steppenwolf Theatre legends, whose origin story begins at Illinois State. While a student at Maine South High School in the Chicago suburbs, he studied with mime T. Daniel, another ISU alum with deep roots in the Gamma Phi Circus who is one degree of separation from Marcel Marceau. Nancy Nickerson, who’s in his production of Waiting in the Wings, was a classmate at Maine South.
“When you bring a university into a town, it really enhances the arts, among other things,” Tinaglia said. “The whole quality of life comes up.”
Waiting in the Wings is billed as a “page to stage” production and was originally planned as a book-in-hand reading. Tinaglia hosted a first reading with the play selection committee in his home, and they all opted for memorized lines after all.
“Staged readings are fine," he said. "They’re wonderful—don’t get me wrong. But once the actor gets the book out of his hands, that’s when a lot of their creativity can come into being. When you get them off script, it is like pulling a Band-Aid. It hurts a little, but then it really soars."
Tinaglia said he’s a collaborative director and has loved working with this cast [Nickerson, Sean Henderson, Heather Estrada, David Frantz and Devyn Bande] to fully realize the romantic comedy, complete with lights, sets and costumes.
A career woman, “who’s about nine-and-a-half months pregnant,” a nervous father-to-be and a set of divorced parents come together to celebrate a birth—in a haunted house.
It’s a situation comedy—plus ghosts…
“…on steroids,” Tinaglia said. “The holidays are over. Come and get a good belly laugh. This show is hilarious. You’ll have a wonderful time in the theater.”
Waiting in the Wings takes place Jan. 15-18 at Illinois Art Station, 101 E. Vernon Ave., Normal. Tickets are $10, available at communityplayers.org.
