Grass roots theatre
Actors hit small town
Bu JACKI CAMPBELL
Creede, Colorado. A tiny mining town high in the mountains. "A boom town that hasn't changed since the boom." A city of 400 surrounded by a natural wilderness.
Twelve KU students last summer transformed an old Creede opera house into a theatre and made it work. Steve Grossman, Chicago senior and producer-director of the company, describes it as "an experiment they call grass roots theatre." It is virtually unheard of for a summer stock theatre of this type to finish in the black, but Grossman's twelve did.
IT ALL STARTED when Grossman saw a letter from Creede's Jaycees asking for someone to build and run a repertoire theatre attractive to Colorado tourists. Grossman called them, they talked almost two hours, and a correspondence was struck up. Each party made conditions, and compromises were agreed upon.
Grossman and Joe Roach, another company member, then went to Creede to investigate the possibility. An honor contract was sealed with a handshake and the first show was scheduled to open on June 26th.
"The whole negotiation must have been executed in less than a month, perhaps three weeks. I came back to Lawrence to choose a cast of twelve talented enough people to do this enormous job." Grossman said.
He auditioned people and "the twelve rightest people I could ever have found for the job came." Most of the actors played in each of the 56 performances. Versatility was a must. If they were not on stage they were running lights, changing the set, sewing on a button or doing another of the countless behind-the-scene tasks of any production.
ALL DAY, every day they rehearsed. Five nights a week they performed. After performances every night, the set was struck and a new one erected.
"The shows weren't easy," Grossman says, "They were technically heavy."
They were thousands of dollars in debt before having any way of knowing, aside from faith in themselves and their project, that their money was coming back.
The twelve virtually rebuilt the ancient opera house—painted every surface and put electricity in for bare-bulb lighting. An old coal bin became a makeup and dressing room. Floors had to be built, mirrors mounted and walls covered. Lines were learned and four shows opened in as many weeks, running alternately until a repertoire of five shows was acquired.
AUDIENCES grew, their reputation spread, and by mid-season every night was a sell-out. Colorado's Governor John Love was seated in a folding chair "because we were sold out when he decided to come," Grossman said. Mining men went. But most patriotic in their jeans and all—perhaps to sit next to a Colorado Springs lawyer who had come in a suit and tie. Professional men and ranchers
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went. But most patriotic in their attendance were the children. They went night after night, having earned money by mowing lawns.
One- and two-dollar seats were available. The "Operation Summer Theatre" house had 144 reserved seats and 30 'standing room only' folding chairs.
Every expense was lifted out of the red and summer's end brought a twelve-way split of a sizeable profit.
The twelve were seven men and five women. The men lived in a suite of low-cost apartments contributed by the town postmaster, and the women lived in a house donated by a rancher. They cooked and they cleaned. They acted and built sets. Costume making, make-up applying, ticket selling, dishwashing everything—was done by the twelve.
THEY DID have a certain amount of help, however. Children attended every rehearsal and helped in the making and tearing down of sets. They also joined the twelve for meals.
Those "hale and hardy mining children" became ones "for whom art, a real experience with an artistic medium, is not a sissy thing—something to avoid—but something they were exposed to when young. It is a thing they got to love and that's why it's important to do these things," Grossman said.
Grossman's twelve, he said,
"worked tirelessly, really tirelessly, at all hours, endless hours. They were never discouraged. The morale and pace stayed high, and they did a very professional job with professional precision.
"We were very proud but we were really humble, you know. We worked our guts out for those people—because we owed so much to them. They took a big financial and social risk in us. They were frightened until they met us, then they loved us. That sounds awfully immodest, but it's true.
Daily Kansan
8
Thursday, October 6, 1966
ATTENTION STUDENTS
Welcome back to Lawrence and KU for another big year
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