Air Force Col. Robert Miller doesn't have any critics at March Air Reserve Base.

"Nobody chews me out here," said the Air Force Reserve flying wing's top logistics officer.

As soon as he changes into civilian clothes at his Moreno Valley home, Miller heads off for another career where everybody is a critic. He's also an actor, subject to reviews from all corners of the stage and audience.

Directors regularly chew him out, he said.

"Nobody calls me Colonel. I love it," Miller growled.

And audiences throughout the Inland area seem to love his performances, said John Collins, executive manager of Riverside Community Players.

"He's a marvelous character actor and has received awards for his work. He's very versatile, and most people have no idea he's a military man," Collins said.

"That's the beautiful thing about community theater. A person from any walk of life, if he's interested in acting, can come to community theater and do what they do best."

Normal working hours find Miller, 53, ensuring that reservists have all the tools and parts necessary to keep planes flying. He likes being called Colonel at work.

But Miller said he needs to unwind on the stage.

It can be a lot of work. Sometimes he is rehearsing nightly until 2 a.m. for three weekend performances.

"I love the theater. It's better than watching TV at night."

Working as an actor has parallels to a military career, he said.

"Acting requires making a commitment to do what you said you'd do. You make a commitment to attend rehearsals, and you've got to make them. You commit to learning your lines. You've got to be disciplined and follow through. That's just like the Air Force."

Base commander Col. Peter Bentley said Miller's acting is a good example of how reservists fit into the mainstream of everyday life.

Miller knows of no other actor-colonel in the military. There are plenty of military figures in history and fiction whose actions have spawned great dramatic roles for actors, however.

Miller once won a role in a play by giving George C. Scott's opening speech from the movie "Patton" while doing an audition. But some military minds might think acting is out of character for an officer, particularly a commanding officer.

That doesn't bother Miller. Few on the base know of his passion for the theater. His office is devoid of theatrical touches. He mostly displays models and lithographs of airplanes that illustrate his 30-year military career.

A musician who plays both piano and trombone, Miller said the theater has always been part of his life. The flip side of his artistic bent is a knack for numbers. He was an accounting major at Lehigh University.

Since his high school and college days in the Northeast, Miller has appeared in school plays and in community theater. He's had roles in 40 plays during the past 20 years while stationed at the former Norton Air Force Base and at March.

His wife, Mickey, also acts, but they rarely perform in the same productions.

Miller said nobody gets rich performing in community theater, but the excitement can be comparable to Broadway.

The trim, athletic Miller has a deep, resonant voice familiar to audiences in Riverside, Redlands, Rialto, Chino and Oak Glen.

He recently played a bartender in Steve Martin's "Picasso at the Lapin Agile," which was produced at the Redlands Theater Festival this summer. The play is about Picasso and Einstein meeting at a Parisian bistro in 1904.

Miller has performed in "Pajama Game" with the Rialto Community Players and now is rehearsing "Dead Ringer," which opens Friday and will run for four weekends at the Rialto Community Players.

"It's an English drama. It's a whodunnit," said Miller, who plays the British foreign minister. The play involves a prime minister and his look-alike.

"This is a cheap hobby. It's so much fun to feel the reaction of the audience from the stage. You never get it perfect. I like that."

Miller's hobby may take a priority when he retires from the military in less than two years.

"I may hire an agent and give it a shot," he said of acting full time.

Marlowe Churchill can be reached by e-mail at mchurchill@pe.com or by phone at (909) 656-3339.