Roll with the role

I have a role in "Voyages" at Theatre Southwest in Houston. It's a tiny little theatre, even smaller than Backdoor, but I have no idea what their production standards are.
(I could make a joke here and say that I don't want to act in any theatre crappy enough to cast me in a show, but I won't).

The script is locally written, which could be bad or good. The few scenes I saw in the audition tell me that this is essentially Love Boat 2008, which is exactly how the director described it, in front of the author, who was in the audience at the time. The author doesn't like hearing it called that, but then many authors are sensitive about their work, and prefer to see it as having depth and artistic integrity. Me, I figure the idea of a comedy is to make people laugh, and if you have a message in the darn thing, the audience shouldn't be consciously aware of it, and neither should the actors. I remember when we did Wee Care in Ft. Worth (OK, the shortened version of it), and an adjudicator dismissed it as being "a sitcom." I had no problem with that, even though he meant it as a criticism, because it WAS and IS a sitcom. I wanted to make people laugh, and I crafted it that way. So happens it also had a message, but I doubt that anyone was aware of it, which made it all the more effective.

But I digress. I will be playing John, listed as "a Texan," more or less my age. The audition sheet didn't ask my age, by the way. It asked what age range I could play - which I appreciate, because even though I am a decrepit old man, I can play 45 if I shave the beard. So I put down 45 - 60, and let them deal with it accordingly.

Things are very different in this theatre, certainly different than MCT, but also different than Backdoor. This director "does things quickly," having rehearsals only three days a week, for six weeks. You go home on time. We get 18 rehearsals after the read-thru, and we're expected to make use of them. I like this idea - the actors who work for a living then have time to learn their lines at home, plus we save gas, since it's a 45 minute drive each way to the theatre.

They don't do musicals - the stage space is smaller than the second stage at MCT, though a bit larger than the second stage at Backdoor.

There is another, closer theatre in the area, named Fort Bend County Community Theatre. Their website is dead, and nobody seems to know how to find them, or I would at least go see one of their shows in case they are decent. With no more support than they seem to have, I'm afraid it might be some sheet-for-a-curtain garage theatre, where nobody takes theatre seriously. I don't mind a theatre with no money, in fact those can sometimes do marvelous things through sheer artistic will - Backdoor comes to mind. But if you can't even find a volunteer to maintain a minimal website, or at least provide contact info on the web somewhere... I kind of doubt they're going to have any lights hanging.

So I should know pretty soon if TSW will be a good experience. It felt pretty good at the audition, so I have my hopes up.