Four days into rehearsals for the musical version of The Secret Garden, at the Plays & Players Theater, my son Stephen told me they were still looking for a man "45 to 55 years old, who can sing, dance and act." Did I know anyone who might fill the role?

Sensing this might be what actor-monologist Spaulding Gray called "a perfect moment," I introduced myself to the show's director, a lanky, imperious South African theater teacher named Lance Moore.

During the first rehearsal, I watched while Moore taught the cast some extraordinarily athletic choreography. He insisted that they do lifts, spins and, during a climactic moment, a back flip. What was taking shape on stage was just as demanding and intense as anything I'd seen, both as a former theater critic and as a theatergoer. Moore, who lives in Center City and teaches theater at Archbishop Prendergrast High, said that he wanted a show that could be as good as, if not better than, shows here and in New York, because "that is the only reason to do theater: To be the absolute best."

I can't dance. When I sing I can barely stay on pitch. But, from having 20 years of martial arts training, I can do a back flip. So I flipped, and got the part. (Later, I found out I was one of some 50 people who had auditioned for 15 parts.)

Community theater was mocked rather savagely in Waiting for Guffman. In the movie, a pathetic bunch of small-town no-talents stage a show with the hope that it will lead to fame, fortune and a sense of purpose in their lives. I didn't find any no-talents in our cast. If anything, everybody in this show can sing, dance and act far better than this back-flipping ex-theater critic.

Three major distinctions define community theater. The first is that the productions are not governed by the minimum pay scales, division of labor and other procedures specified by Actors Equity, the national actors union.

The second is money or, rather, the lack of it. Bill Egan, the show's producer, told me that this is "as nonprofit as you can get." The show's largest expense is paying for the rights to perform it using the Broadway book and score. Nobody gets paid and everyone is expected to help build the sets and scrounge for props and costumes.

When I asked him why he persisted, he said, "I just need to do this." That need is the third distinction. Professional actors might worry about their careers, but, in the realm of community theater, it's all about what being in a show does for you. One of the men in the cast told me, "You know that guy in A Chorus Line who wanted to do ballet instead of sports? That's me." Another said that the rigorous dancing that Moore demands "was better exercise than anything I can get in a gym."

With the exception of the kids, just about everyone else works full time at a job that has nothing to do with theater. Because those jobs frequently demand more than 40 hours a week, many of our rehearsals take place with key members missing.

Missing a rehearsal is a mortal sin in professional theater. In community theater, prior commitments are part of a long list of difficulties that make mounting a production of any kind a very unlikely thing.

And yet, as the rehearsals grind on and on, things start to go right. You have moments when you're in the center of a shimmering chorus of voices all of whom (with the possible exception of myself) are hitting each note precisely right. You go to sleep dreaming the scenes. You get moments when a scene clicks, when the timing of the action flows in a way that makes you believe, yes, this is going to work, the people in the audience are going to like this.

And I have the peculiar, once-in-a-lifetime thrill of being on the same stage with my son, which is not quite the same as being a soccer dad in the bleachers when your kid kicks a goal.

It's better.

Bill Kent is a local writer. If you would like to respond to this Slant, or have one of your own (750 words), e-mail duane@citypaper.net.