About ETC Theater

Todd Cardin formed ETC Theater so that he could write and produce original plays that would appeal to the mainstream audiences as well as the fringe theater community.

Although The Etcetera Theater Group is new to the scene, the concept has been a long time in the making. Twenty years ago in 1984, Todd Cardin was in the audience for a performance of Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat starring Anson Williams (Potsie, Happy Days). Cardin was removed from the theater due to interacting too much with the performance. How upset Williams was by Todd constantly referring to him as Potsie is still puzzling. Being physically removed from the theater was not a pleasant experience, but that night Cardin fell in the love with the theater.

The following year a similar experience ensued during a performance of A Christmas Carol starring Sherman Hemsley (George Jefferson, The Jefferson’s). Hemsley was a much better sport than Anson Williams, but security did not appreciate the repeated question “Where’s Weezie?”. Again there was a scene involving physically removing Cardin from the theater. Yet, still his love affair for the theater grew.

I was expecting the theater experience to be a lot like being in the studio audience for a Good Times episode. I expected the audience to react and shout back to the characters. Instead, I found people sitting on their hands, politely clapping at appropriate times.

Throughout the years Cardin fell deeper in his love for live performances. He found his particular favorites involved former television stars acting in smaller venues, there was Dave Madden (Reuben Kinkade, The Partridge Family) in Man of La Mancha, Norman Fell, (Three’s Company/The Roeper’s) in My Fair Lady and Horshack in The King and I. His personal favorite was Demond Wilson (LaMont, Sanford and Son) and Kristi McNichol in The Goodbye Girl. Somewhere during all of this Todd realized he loved Television even more than the stage. And the idea of Etcetera theater was born.

Today Etcetera theater mixes television, pop music and pop culture to cater to the generations that were raised on and raised by television. Our goal is to become the perfect marriage of the stage and the TV screen. ETCETERA THEATER GROUP, Live Theater for a TV Generation.