55. Production Notes From Backstage

Copyright 2023 Peter Schmitz - All Rights Reserved

[AITH INTRO THEME]

Welcome to Adventures in Theater History! Where we aim to bring you the best stories from the deep and fascinating history of theater in the city of Philadelphia. Hello, I’m Peter Schmitz, and I research, write and narrate the show. And as always our opening and closing theme music is by Christopher Mark Colucci. However, Chris is off on an adventure of his own today. He's at the 15th Prague Quadrennial, the international festival of theater and stage design in Czechia or Czech Republic, right now. This was a long-scheduled trip for him, and I know he’s having a wonderful time, and I’m sure Chris will come back with some amazing and beautiful photos of his experiences there. He usually does. 

So, as occasionally happens around here I’m handling all the sound engineering myself this time around. If you notice a marked difference in the quality of the depth or clarity of the sound experience today - well that explains it. All I can say is, once again, I’m doing the very best I can ladies and gentlemen, and I assure you that Chris will be back soon, in our next episode.

This is going to be a somewhat different episode in many ways, actually. We are pausing the narrative of the story we were examining last time - about the history of Theatre of the Living Arts. I promise you I am still working on this story, and as things stand we plan to have it out in a couple weeks - certainly by the end of June at the latest. 

But we are going to do a little housekeeping today - I’ve got some announcements to make. Plus, I’ve been meaning for some time to respond to some questions I receive about this show, and also to answer queries about Philly theater history. And we’re going to let you behind the scenes on our process here on how we do things here. That’s why I’m calling this one “Production Notes from Backstage.”

All right, First Note: We have a big shout out and a thanks to Mr. Joe C., who has recently become one of our supporters on Patreon. Thank you Joe! So happy to have you aboard. Now for the rest of you I’m only using his first name and last initial, because I promise that to everyone on the Patreon sign up form - no last names,- but if I tell you that Joe C. is himself a longtime South Philadelphia theater performer, director, and a very eminent artistic director of a theater company, well then a great number of you will know exactly who I am talking about, and understand why we are so pleased and so honored to have his ongoing support for this podcast. Joe joins the other folks who are now - or who have at some point in the past - made donations through Patreon. It’s not a permanent commitment, folks - don’t worry. Though your donations are collected monthly, you can hop on and hop off any time you want - no worries at all. Whatever works for you.

If you would like to consider helping us out with the continuing costs of this podcast, (which are real - not overwhelming, but quite real) go to www.patreon.com/AITHpodcast and take a look. There are three different levels of support you can sign up for, which entitle you to different levels of member benefits in return. But all Patreon supporters get access to bonus episodes, to photos that I share exclusively there, extra historical essays, and previews of things that I am working on. Plus - you get early access, and perhaps free admission, to our next Philadelphia Theater History Walking Tour! 

Yes, folks, that’s our Second Note: Plans for the next Philadelphia Theater History Walking Tour are in the works! As of right now I’m looking at dates in either late September or early October 2023. We did one of these two years ago, and it was lots of fun for everyone - just a marvelous experience. We visited Edwin Forrest’s grave, walked up and down South Street, saw the sites of many famous 19th Century theater fires, and we actually got to go inside and poke around inside the Walnut Street Theatre itself. Next time, I think, we’ll go in another direction, but I can’t say exactly where yet. So keep your eyes and ears open for the announcement. We will certainly talk about it here, and make an announcement over our Facebook and Instagram feeds. But remember, though we will open it up to the general public, Patreon supporters will hear about it FIRST, and Patreon supporters get first dibs on the limited number of spots! So another inducement for you to consider supporting our work. Subscribe now!

[MUSIC]

And now, we get to the Corrections portion of the show. Sometimes, despite my best efforts, some errors of historical fact go out onto the podcast here. It may be just as simple as getting a name or a date or a small detail or a pronunciation wrong. It’s not unknown for historians to get things wrong. My own copies of other historians books on Philly theater history have quite a few scribbled notes from me in them, where I have noticed that this eminent historian has gotten a fact wrong, or mislabeled an image or something. Unfortunately for these authors, once it’s in physical print there not much they can do about it. But one of the advantages of doing a history podcast - which is not in print but in digital sound files - is that I can fix things.

For instance, in way back in our episode #2, about theater in the 18th century, I said that the first professional touring theater company arrived in Philadelphia during the year 1746 - and that’s just wrong, the year was 1749. Now that may seem pretty small beans, but you know, it bugs me that it's sitting there, just . . . . wrong. The facts matter, and getting facts right enhances and maintains the reputation of this whole endeavor. So here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to go back to the sound file for that episode and we will just gently insert what we call a “patch” - just a little snippet of sound in which I say “1749”, and take out the offending incorrect year. And more importantly the correct information is supplied for all listeners.

In that same episode I also want to take out the short passage where I say that the plans for the original Chestnut Street Theatre were modeled after those of the Royal Theatre in Bath, England. Now, that’s a mistake that wasn’t just made by me, you will see it published in a lot of places, including in very respected theater history textbooks, but it’s just wrong, that was disproved by an architectural historian named John Wolcot, back in 1971. I’ve seen the research paper. He had really looked at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania archives about the Chestnut’s construction, rather than just parroting what every other book had said. Now I knew this correct story at one point, but I guess I then somehow forgot that I knew it, in the rush to publish the episode, and that old incorrect factoid crept back into my script. Well, we’re going to patch that one too, real soon.

There was another occasion I can recall where I got a very large fact wrong - and it wasn't just a niggly little detail about dates. Originally one of our early episodes about Ricketts’ Circus I had a whole passage about Black theater going in late 18th Century theater, originally contained the assertion that though wealthy Philadelphia slave owners in the later 18th Century - though they would send their Black ‘servants’ to hold places for them in Philadelphia theaters, they did not let them attend the shows. And that was just wrong, because there is evidence that enslaved Black people did in fact often attend shows in Philadelphia. In fact, historians have documented that the famous Oney Judge, who liberated herself from the household of President George Washington himself, had been given money by Washington to see Philadelphia plays and circuses. It’s one of the reasons George and Martha were reportedly so personally offended when Oney Judge left - after all, hadn’t they been kind and generous? Got to see shows and everything, just like a member of the family. Anyway, I realized that I had really not done proper background research on a truly consequential topic of American history, so I went back to the sound file and snipped that whole section out.

Now, I don’t always notice the mistakes myself, but thank goodness that attentive and helpful listeners do, and bring them to my attention. And again, these facts may be small, but they’re still important. Facts do matter, and we’re going to adhere to that rule. For example, in a more recent episode, number 50, “Stop Those Swinging Girls!” I said that General Smedley Butler, the scourge of Prohibition Era Philadelphia wickedness and vice, had during his years of military service ‘won’ two Congressional Medals of Honor. When he heard that, my friend, the great and good Dr. Joe Lex, host of the “All Bones Considered” podcast, wrote me and gently reminded me that Congressional Medals of Honor are properly described as being “awarded” and not “won.”

And, in another example, after listening to Episode 53 “Philadelphia Theater Scanda”, Russ Walsh, a longtime local Philadelphia actor and educator, wrote in to tell me that I had gotten the pronunciation of the distinctive name of the producer of the Lambertville Music Circus wrong - it wasn’t “St. John TERrul”, but rather “Sinjun terRELL” - he said it the way the Brits do. I’m very grateful to both Joe and Russ for helping me get things right, and I’m going to get some sound patches lined up to fix those flubs, you betcha.

If you hear something - in any episode, old or new - that needs fixing - or just needs more exploration - don’t hesitate to let me know. I am so happy to hear from you. Our email is aithpodcast@gmail.com or go to our website www.aithpodcast.com and use the Contact Us form. All corrections are happily and gratefully accepted.

[MUSIC ]

I have heard from a number of listeners lately, not giving me corrections, but asking me questions about a fact of Philadelphia theater history. Sometimes they’re trying to track down facts about a relative or ancestor who used to be in show biz - and I love these queries, because frequently these are people I’ve never heard about before, and their questions often come with additional images and documents that I’m just thrilled to have.

Sometimes it’s just curiosity - one loyal listener of the show recently sent me an email and asked me if T.S. Eliot’s play The Cocktail Party was ever produced in Philadelphia. The answer, by the way, is yes - it was done at the Walnut Street Theatre in 1952, in a production that was imported from Gregory Peck’s La Jolla Playhouse out in California. It was very well reviewed in the Philly newspapers, too! Two years later another production was done at the Bucks County Playhouse in a production that starred Uta Hagen. So that was pretty interesting, and I can find stuff like that out pretty quickly, just using the search functions on Newspapers.com, which I subscribe to. Or by digging through digital archives at the Temple University Library. Sometimes I’ve got a book on my shelf that contains the answer - so give me a holler! I’m always ready to dive in and look into something else, especially if it distracts me from something I really SHOULD be doing - like you know writing the next episode of this podcast. I literally just took fifteen minutes, just now, while I’m writing this, to research a friend’s query about exactly what play the Philadelphia Drama Guild was opening in late November 1973 at the Walnut Street Theatre. (Answer: Tennessee Williams’ The Rose Tattoo, with Maureen Stapleton and Jerry Orbach.)

Again, I often get great leads from these listener queries. Just this week, I got a lovely note via our website, from Mary Beth Regan. Mary Beth let me know that she is putting together a tour of the Actors Order of Friendship plot at the historic Mount Moriah Cemetery in Southwest Philadelphia. Included in the tour will be the graves of three 19th Century Philadelphia tact: Edwin Adams, W.S. Fredericks, and Annie Kemp Bowler. 

Now I had read about the Actors Order of Friendship, which was a benevolent professional association of theater people in Philadelphia - a sort of proto-union. These were fraternal groups that would look after their members if they met with financial difficulties, most particularly in old age. You can see ads in the Philly papers during the 1850s and 60s, every year around February or March, there would be a fundraising ball for the Actors Order of Friendship. In an era when there were few pension plans or funeral insurance, the Order would provide for a decent funeral service and a burial plot for its members. You can see the ads in the Philadelphia papers for the annual fundraising ball in February or March.  It was the Phoenix Lodge of the Actor’s Order of Friendship which rallied round and buried poor John Drew Sr., the husband of Louisa Lane Drew, after he fell down the stairs in his home at his daughter’s birthday party in May 1862, for instance - though that was at the old Glenwood Cemetery in North Philadelphia.

Sometimes the AOOF helped out non-members in need, too, especially actors from out of town who had met with sudden or violent ends while they were in Philadelphia. We also heard in our episode about Theater fires how in 1861, when the Continental Theatre on Walnut Street had the horrible backstage blaze which killed the four Gale sisters, young ballerinas incinerated in their gauzy skirts, the Order helped their shattered family and the families and other victims to find burials both at its plot at Glenwood and also at Mount Moriah.

By the 1870s the Actor’s Order seems to have had a dedicated plot for its members out at Mount Moriah, which is where the Philadelphia actor John McCullough was be laid to rest after succumbing to syphilis in 1885, as we detailed in Episode 33. But McCullough’s wealthy friends were able to raise a very fancy private monument for him, which you can still see, in one of the tonier parts of the cemetery. What is this special plot, who were Edwin Adams, W.S. Fredericks, and Annie Kemp? Why were these roving theater folk buried in Philadelphia at all? Well, I know now, because I spent most of yesterday looking these names up, and these are fascinating and little-known Philadelphia theater stories. Thank you so much, Mary Beth for bringing them to my attention. Poor Annie Kemp, for example, died after falling off a high stage platform in 1876 at the National Theatre on Callowhill St, in a revival of the spectacular American musical “The Black Crook.” But I don’t want to spoil the fun of Mary Beth’s cemetery tour! In fact, I may go along myself, when she’s finally ready. I’ll let you know the details when I learn them.

[MUSIC]

So, as I mentioned,  I will be back in a few weeks with the exciting conclusion of our story about Philadelphia’s Theater of the Living Arts in the late 1960s. We will try to answer the question that we raised ourselves. Why did this promising and dynamic young theater company, which started with such promise, not even last to see out the decade? It will be the final episode of our Season Two: Drama is Conflict. I had wanted very much to get to the story of the Manning Street Theatre Company, which followed directly after the demise of the TLA, but we will just have to get to that later.

Here’s my larger plan for future seasons of the podcast: Season Three (which is going to start in the Fall of 2023) is probably going to be about Philadelphia as a Tryout Town - that long period from the 1920s to the 1970s when Philly was one of the principal places that commercial Broadway production that were out on their trial runs. It was an exciting time for audiences, when everything from Death of a Salesman to Streetcar Named Desire to Gigi and Music Man and Guys & Dolls would have their world premieres in Philly. There were so many famous successes that went on to become familiar works of American theater, and of course there wer also some astounding flops that just died here in Philly and never got to Broadway, but they make some great stories.

So that’s going to be Season Three, and then, in the fall of 2024, there will be a Season Four, in which we’ll return to the Story of local Philly non-profit theaters - and how they gathered strength and steam throughout the real difficult years of the 70s and 80s, and finally so much began to go well in the 1990s and early 2000s. So! There’s a lot to talk about , and I’m very excited for this long term project, and thank you for coming along with me.
 
Finally, some personal news, as they say – Um, well, I seem to be going back on the stage once again. In what was a rather unlooked for and pleasant surprise to me, I have been offered a role this summer in the play Boca by Jessica Provenz. It is going to be done at the Act II Playhouse in Ambler PA, directed by the great Tony Braithwaite. Mary Martello, Tom Teti, Ellen Ratner and Penny Reed will also be in the cast. Performances start at the end of July, and continue through August. If you are listening from somewhere close to that part of Montgomery County, please come to the show and catch the show! And look for me afterwards. I’ll put a link to information about tickets to the play in the show notes.

So being in an actual play is naturally going to take up a bit of my time and attention, and there’s one other possible big professional project that may be looming on the horizon, too. Sorry to be so mysterious, but that’s all I really can say right now. I only mention it all to explain why I’m not sure how much podcasting I’ll be able to do over the summer, but, we shall see. Anyway, this is all good news, exciting news, and I’m so pleased to be able to share it, or even wave vaguely in the direction of it, for you. Watch this space. 

[FADE IN MUSIC, UNDER]

Meanwhile, I’ll see you all again, in just a few weeks right here on this podcast feed. Thanks for listening, as we took a little rest from our historical journeying. But we will be back again next time, with the exciting concussion of Season Two of Adventures in Theater History: Philadelphia! 

[UNDERSCORING OUT. PLAY AITH END THEME]