Show People was featured in this month’s “Five things in arts” column in Smile Politely. Read SP Arts Editor Amy Penne’s write up below:

Here’s a truth every active and lapsed performer in this town knows in their bones: nobody stops loving the stage. They just stop being able to give it eight weeks of weeknight rehearsals. The Theatre and Music Society—TAMS, a brand-new nonprofit that spent two years quietly running play readings and a cabaret at Parkland before making it official with 501(c)(3) papers and a five-year plan—is built precisely for those people. The pitch: low-commitment, high-standard ways back in, split between “Practice” (table reads, workshops) and “Performance” (cabarets, concerts, staged readings), for the artist who wants the work without signing over a season of their life. It’s designed to complement the companies already here, not compete, which is the right instinct in an ecosystem this interdependent. They’re throwing the launch party at the Rose Bowl Tavern, which tells you plenty about the vibe—Urbana warmth, no velvet rope. Raise a glass to the volunteers who built this, and if you’ve been telling yourself for years that you’d get back onstage someday, consider this someday tapping you on the shoulder.