PARKERSBURG – The Parkersburg Actors Guild is celebrating its 60th anniversary.

The community theater’s diamond jubilee will include a gala at 6 p.m. Nov. 27 at the Parkersburg Art Center followed by a musical performance representing shows from the past 60 years at 8 p.m. at the theater, then an encore presentation of the show at 8 p.m. Nov. 28.

Tickets for the Nov. 27 gala and performance are $40 and $20 for the encore performance on Nov. 28. Tickets can be purchased by calling the box office at 304-485-1300 or ordered online at actorsguildonline.org.

David Rexroad, a member of the show’s ensemble, a soloist and show co-creator, said 60 years for a community theater is a remarkable accomplishment.

“The guild is exceptional in that it has been around for so many years. Most community theaters can’t say that and been so successful over the years,” he said. “And we’re celebrating all that history.”

Show performances will include songs from many of the musicals the Actors Guild has presented over the past six decades and will feature performers from years ago, a mini-reunion of the singing group Just Us Friends and an ensemble of active Actors Guild performers. Susanne Bailey, the longtime Actors Guild volunteer, supporter and matriarch, will participate in a special video appearance.

Barbara Full, a co-creator of the show and a member of the ensemble, said the Actors Guild exposed to her to an unencountered world.

“It opened my eyes to the theatrical world and now it is one of my life’s greatest passions,” she said.

Full also cited the accomplishment of celebrating 60 years.

“For a theatrical group with, let’s say quirky personalities, to still be around after 60 years, I think is a testament to how when it comes down to the show we all band together and become a family,” she said.

Maureen Freshour is among the past musical guests returning for the celebration.

“The Actors Guild is that file folder I keep with all the wonderful, hysterical, inspirational moments,” Freshour said.

“I revisit and review the “file” whenever I feel like I’m uninspired, creatively challenged or that I don’t make a difference. Every time I was on stage, back stage or in the house, a difference was being made somehow.

The ensemble for the performance includes Sherry Braid, Judy Cheuvront, Danny DePugh, Betty Dotson, Barbara Full, Bob Heflin, Reinnie Leavitt, R.J. Lowe, Brett Meade, Pete Myers, Marsha Parsons, David Rexroad, Dixie Sayre, J.T. Spivy, Su Voycik-Meredith and Tim Wilson.

Sixty years is a milestone, Voycik-Meredith, a veteran of the Actors Guild stage, said. She played Mrs. Lovett in the musical “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” last year.

“I think any group would want to celebrate, but the guild has always stood above normal community theater,” she said. “It goes without saying that everyone who attends the guild, whether they’re from a season ticket holder up to just somebody who walked in off the street who happened to be here in town knows that this place does quality theater and always has, way above what most people would expect.”

With Freshour, other musical performers will be Brian Berry, Mike Dotson, Jeff Haught, Heather Hepburn, Brittani Hill, Tom Hill, Jim Full, John Lee, Tom Lodato, Charlie Matthews, Brent Null, Troy Snyder and Amanda Stevens.

For Matthews, among the more-tenured members of the Actors Guild, the Actors Guild was a place where he could show his artistic side.

“You know I was a banker for 35 years. Nothing wrong with that. It’s just you can’t bust into song or lines from a play right there in the middle of the bank. In many ways I felt like it was just a huge release for me,” Matthews said. “People would often ask, ‘How do you do the banking by day and this by night?’ But it was a hobby that I loved and I could spend eight hours at work and then spend another eight to 10 hours here at the Guild and I wasn’t even tired because it was such a wonderful release and a way to do something you really love.”

Lowe, a member of the ensemble and a soloist in the show, has spent 29 years with the guild. He recalled the memories of working with his late father, Charlie Lowe, and the rides to and from rehearsals when they together in shows.

“My dad and I didn’t share a whole lot of similar interests and were never really that close, so alone time spent together going to and from rehearsals, performances, and even cast parties was precious,” he said. “And getting to share the deep passion of performing, or even theater in general, with him was a blessing and something that brought us closer together than I ever thought we would be. I miss him and each time I step onto that stage I pray he is smiling down with pride in the work I do.”

Null, a returning musical guest, said the experience at the Actors Guild made him a better actor.

“The guild will always be home to me. it’s where i learned how to be, not only a better actor and director, but a better person as well,” he said. “Some of my closest and dearest friends that I will have for life I met at the guild.”

Local instrumentalists will include Mike Dotson, Jane Irvine, Scott Kitchen and Marsha Parsons. Guest narrators include Joyce Ancrile, James Bobier, Jim Full, Abby Hayhurst, Tom Hill, Bob Holland, Bill Knotts, Sue Lamp, John Lee, Sandy Lessig, Matthews, Greg Merritt, Rod Oden, Jean Newton, John Newton, Susan Schuchts, Dixie Showalter, John Swales, Eli Tracewell and Robin White.

The story about the Parkersburg Actors Guild starts in May 1956 when a group of local theater enthusiasts got together and decided to call themselves the Parkersburg Actors Guild. Putting up their own money, the group funded its first production in August, “Born Yesterday,” which was performed two nights in the auditorium at the Ben Franklin Junior High School in south Parkersburg.

Tickets for the inaugural show were $1.25. The group did two more shows that season.

In its second season, the Actors Guild performed “Teahouse of the August Moon” at the baseball field at City Park, a show that was complete with a live goat.

Starting in 1959, the guild moved into a donated storefront on Dudley Avenue across from Parkersburg High School. The building was where an ice cream store was once located.

After only two seasons, the guild had to vacate the premises as it was being demolished. Space was found on the second floor of the former White Star Laundry on St. Marys Avenue.

The Actors Guild stayed at the St. Marys location for 14 Seasons. The last show produced there, “Fiddler on the Roof,” was held over with 19 performances and set an all-time record.

The Actors Guild’s current home at Eighth and Market streets once housed the Lincoln Theatre, first a silent movie house in the 1920’s and later converted to talkies. In the 1930’s, it was purchased by J.C. Penney and converted into a department store.

When Penney’s moved to the Grand Central Mall in the early 1970’s, the guild began a plan to obtain the building and reconvert it to a theater.

It took two and a half years to raise $130,000 to purchase and remodel the building. The theater opened Nov. 14, 1975, with the show “A Little Night Music.”

Mighty oaks from tiny acorns grow.

Today, the Actors Guild produces six main stage shows per season; hosts a children’s program, the Guild Builders; presents special front of curtain performances, known as Theater on the Half Shell; and occassionally outside events like the Schraeder’s Ballet, corporate meetings and other functions.

The 60th Anniversary season opened in September with a hit run of “Arsenic and Old Lace,” the fourth time the Actors Guild has produced the popular show. The latest show, “The Addams Family,” an Actors Guild premier, enjoyed a sold-out run as the second show of the celebratory season.

After 60 Seasons, in addition to the anniversary gala and show, the remainder of the season will include Actors Guild premiers of: “The 39 Steps,” a comedy based on Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller, in January; “Legally Blonde,” based on the hit film, in April; “Boeing, Boeing,” a farce, in June; and the season finale “Monty Python’s Spamalot” in July and August.