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Thousands Of Amateur Actors Bring Top TV Shows To Hom« Town Stages Non-TV set owners don’t have to feel entirely deprived. They, too, can see popular television programs, past and present, by merely ambling down to their neighborhood school, church or little theater. Practically every night in the week, on stages in and out of TV reception areas, there are performances of I Love Lucy, Our Miss Brooks, My Lit¬ tle Margie, Mr. Peepers, Father Knows Best, Meet Corliss Archer, or such TV old-timers as My Friend Irma and Date with Judy. It may be a Lucy without Lucille Ball or a Mr. Peepers with a 15-year- old hero, but fun nonetheless. Which is one reason three-act plays based on TV’s situation comedies are so popular with many of the Nation’s estimated 66,000 amateur troupes. Other reasons are suggested by Christopher Sergei, vice-president of the Dramatic Publishing Co. Young people, he says, like to play the parts. They’re easy to cast. (“Every school has a tall boy with a good ‘look of indignation’ to play the Robert Young part in Father Knows Best, or a vivacious girl who’s just right for Margie.”) Box-office trade is brisk, because practically everyone seems interested in seeing neighbors play familiar roles. Furthermore, says Sergei, the sub¬ ject matter of TV shows is usually suitable for every kind of audience. Plays based on TV shows have been making the rounds almost since 1946, when TV first got rolling again after the war. In most cases they were in¬ spired by amateur groups’ letters of inquiry to play publishers. The plays, commissioned by the pub¬ lishers, usually are woven together from two or three especially popular programs. In some cases, however, only the characters are borrowed from a TV show; the stories are en¬ tirely new. A number of the TV-based plays are in the catalogs of the Dramatic Publishing Co., 179 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, Ill.; Dramatists Play Serv¬ ice, Inc., 14 E. 38th St., New York City, and Samuel French Co., 25 W. 45th St., New York City. Royalties range from about $25 to $50 per performance. Above, 'Mr. Peepers/ with members of the Wayne, Pa., Footlighters. At left, similar scene with Pat Benoit, Wally Cox, Marion Lome, Tony Randall of TV cast.