Summer
Circle Theatre Memory Book
The Original Summer Circle Marquee
MSU Demonstration Hall - 1961
Prior
to 1961
JEAN
G. KENNEDY REMEMBERS ....
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Long
before there was an established Summer Circle Theatre, on June
3, 1946, in the Auditorium Garden, just east of Fairchild Theatre,
then a rose garden, an adaptation of Shakespeare’s A
Midsummer Night's Dream was performed.
The
play, entitled The Fairy Forest, was designed to fulfill
one of the requirements for my master’s degree: to stage
an unpublished play for children. After a fruitless effort to
find a play which met my specifications and those of my advisor,
Donald Buell, Director of Theatre, and too pressed for
time to consider writing a play myself, I turned to Shakespeare’s
fund of material. After much "cutting and pasting"
I devised a one-act play which was approved by my advisor as
well as Professor Paul D. Bagwell, head
of
Speech and Theatre Department, and Dr. Townsend Rich,
professor of English, who taught courses in Shakespeare. Professor
Buell told me that "Tony" Rich said he
couldn’t tell where Shakespeare left off and Granville
began, and gave his blessing to the project.
It
might amuse your readers to know that in addition to concerns
about the weather, and the planes that might distract or drown
out the cast, I was very worried about a mother duck who had
laid her eggs behind a tree on the set. Would the ducklings
make an unscheduled appearance on the evening of the play? Well,
they didn’t, there was no rain, and if the planes flew
over during the play, I don’t think anyone noticed.
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1961
ANDREA
RUTLEDGE REMEMBERS ....
| Summer
Circle and I were born the same year. According to my father,
Frank Rutledge, I can say with all honesty that I have
been around since the beginning because I was taken to rehearsals
and left to sleep in a bassinette in the next room. |
Blithe
Spirit
by Noel Coward
First SCT Play - Summer 1961
Cast: Judy
Nichols, Ann Crow, Bud Spangler,
Helen Shaw, Kay Ingram and Ben Hickock
Directed by Corliss Phillabaum
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Frank
Rutledge (age 26) &
Andrea
(age 3 months.)
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Bill
Helder crowns Howard Lancour - Summer 1961
A promotional photo for Strang: King
of All Nations
by John Baldwin |
Tonnie
Kissee and Joel Gerughty - Summer 1962
Five Finger Exercise
by Peter Shaffer |
1963
Cat
On a Hot Tin Roof
by Tennessee Williams
Directed by Frank Rutledge
Designed and Lighted by Edward A. Andreasen
Summer 1963
1964
Summer
Circle Theatre thrust stage in Dem Hall paterned after
the stage ofthe Stratford Ontario Shakespeare Festival.
It was improved and enlarged for the convenience of
the actors and audience.
Designed by Edward A. Andreasen - Summer 1964
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Ken
Beachler (center) in
The Boy Friend
Summer 1964 |
1965
ANDREA
RUTLEDGE REMEMBERS
....
My
mother built the puppets for Carnival. I fell in love
with these marvelous "people" even though they were
only made of scraps of cloth, costume jewelry, and papier
mache.
Reynard the Fox had a shiny silk cravat. And Carrot Top had
hair made of orange yarn. Today, these four special friends
hold court on the top shelf of the bookcase in my mother’s
office at Virginia Tech.
Marquerite
(left) and Horrible Henry (the walrus)
Some of Marguerite’s jewelry had
been my mother’s.
Horrible Henry’s mustache was made of real fur.
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Because of these puppets, and because later I came to love
the music and the sweet story of this show, Carnival
remains one of my favorite musicals. In
these early years, I would have a babysitter who was hired
for the summer: the same young woman each evening. I remember
one year, this was the person who took me to the fireworks
on the 4th of July. Another year, another summer sitter introduced
me to the work of Laura IngallsWilder. I wasn’t
always taken to see the plays – it would have meant an
awfully long night for a five year old, but I remember being
in and out of Demo
Hall during the day. We would stop by in the afternoon and
I remember trucks and trailers being unloaded and there was
lots of activity. Louis
Bauer, Scott Weldon, Duane, Reed, Tony Collins, Bonnie Raphael,
Miriam Sakalaskas, Mariam Duckwall, E.C. Reynolds, Sidney
Berger, Bernie Tato, and Phil Heald (a/k/a Anthony Heald).
These were some of the people who populated my summers between
early childhood and the first grade.
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