In the early 1950s, a group of well-off men and women from the Village of Ottawa Hills formed a theater group for entertainment. Their first shows were presented with a tent as their theater and were held in Ottawa Park. As the group continued to prosper and grow, they began to look for a new, permanent home. A small church building on Upton Avenue between Monroe Street and Central Avenue was acquired in the mid-1960s, and renovations began to turn the chapel into a true theater space. Incorporated in 1956, The Village Players Theater has evolved over the years into a friendly, open, community theater presenting a wide variety of productions.

Over the years, new seats, state-of-the-art lighting and sound systems, and numerous “work days” have turned the humble chapel into one of Toledo’s most-beloved performance spaces.


Walter Cronkite is Dead by Joe Calarco (comedy)September 6 – 14, 2019

A fierce thunderstorm has shut down airports up and down the East Coast. Two women, who appear to have nothing in common, are stuck in a waiting area at Reagan National Airport. Patty is a chatty southerner—a blue-collar woman from a red state—who is almost physically unable to tolerate silence. Margaret is a Washingtonian, reserved, educated, liberal and not interested in sharing her thoughts, or her table, with Patty. Forced together for a long night in a public place, the two strangers have no choice but to share a bottle of wine and begin to talk…and to listen. Their conversation is funny, difficult, deeply revealing and astonishingly frank. Patty and Margaret share details of their lives that lead them to a place of kinship neither of them could have imagined. Yes, Walter Cronkite is dead, but his wisdom and compassion lives on in this insightful comedy about what might be possible if people from opposite sides of the political aisle would stop shouting and take even one night to listen.


Get more info and tickets at thevillageplayers.org