During the day, some of the women...

During the day, some of the women work in offices. One is a graphic artist and another teaches aerobics.

But for the past four months, they’ve been spending a few evenings a week preparing to become the pioneer women of “Quilters.” Through words, music and quilt panels sewn from scraps, they share the hardships, the sufferings, and the happy times of their lives.

And it’s no small assignment. The cast of seven, accompanied by two musicians, plays an entire population. They’re old women and, with pipes as props, old men; little girls in a schoolroom and women in childbirth. Holding hoops over their heads, they’re riding in prairie schooners. And on all fours on the stage, some even become cattle freezing in a storm.

“The acting is easy,” quipped cast member Kathy Engelhardt. “It’s the singing part that’s hard.”

To the Torrance Community Theatre, this staging of “Quilters”--which opens an eight-weekend run tonight with a champagne reception--is the deserved revival of a major hit.

The original 1988 production was the group’s biggest success that year. “So many people saw it and came back three or four times, bringing more people with them,” said director Larry J. Hayter.

He said “the heart and warmth of the play itself” is what pleases audiences. “The cast is such a warm unit, working together, telling a story about real people.”

And for everyone involved, it’s a labor of love: Applause is the only salary anyone gets for putting on plays 40 weekends a year at the one-time movie house that the Torrance company has called home for 20 years.

As company publicist, Dave Llewelyn said: “Some people sing, some fish, these people act.” They also build the sets and, in the case of “Quilters,” the women made their own calico and gingham dresses.

“To hear that applause from the audience is equal to the pay you’d receive,” said actress Pam Cline, a 20-year veteran of the company. “But in rehearsal, when you’re dragging on until 11:30 and 12, and have to be up at 6 to go to work, it gets a little like work.”

The 1988 “Quilters” cast is back on stage, and Hayter and some performers say the revival has more emotional depth than the first because no one had to start all over again.

“We’re not just a show,” said actress Layne Taylor. “We’re a family.”

To add atmosphere to performances, the South Bay Quilters Guild has supplied quilts to decorate the lobby, and a couple of quilters will be at work in the theater before every performance.

The Torrance Community Theatre has had a long and wandering history in the South Bay. It began in the late 1930s as the Hampton Players in Redondo Beach. Later, the company occupied a warehouse in Torrance but was evicted when the building was torn down to make way for Del Amo Fashion Center. That’s when the company moved into the old Cravens Avenue movie house, which dates from the late 1930s.

The large building has a nostalgic and cluttered theatrical museum look about it. There’s upholstered furniture and a low-slung chandelier in the large lobby. Wandering through the place, visitors encounter props--a fake fireplace and a jukebox made especially for one show--wig stands, racks of costumes and stacked scenery. Set models from several years of productions are in lighted cases.

Company directors are frank about striving to be a popular theater that emphasizes musicals, comedies and hit shows to please a generally older audience.

“Dramas don’t sell, even though actors like them because they want to get their hands in something,” said company president Allan W. Ruppar. The 130-seat theater pays its bills almost exclusively through box-office receipts, he said, adding: “We have no debt, but we have no credit either.”

“Evita” was a smash and “Cabaret” more than paid the rent when the coffers were empty. But readings and experimental plays aren’t ignored. They are done in a small theater upstairs that is named in honor of Lynn Mulchan, a company member who died two years ago.

Over the years, the theater has developed a loyal audience, but the group is trying to broaden the draw for “Quilters” with Friday discounts for students and senior citizens.

“We’re trying to bring in new faces,” Ruppar said.