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Little Theatre Celebrates Twenty-Fifth AnniversaryTwenty-five years ago a group of Walla Wallans interested in bringing live entertainment to the military troops in town met and organized a Little Theatre project. The prime objective of the group was to “produce good plays well/’ and those in the group insisted that the organization must be composed of those to whom the theatre was fun.A “pre-season” play, Yes, My Darling Daughter, was cast, rehearsed ana taken to McCaw Hospital and the Air Base for presentation on July 1 and 5, 1944, where it was enthusiastically received. The play was then held until October 13, and performances were opened to the local public and presented penthouse style in the Marcus Whitman Ballroom.In the meanwhile, the membership had found a location at 23% East Main, and everyone went to work contributing time, money and talent to construct, decorate and equip a Little Theatre seating approximately 100 people on benches loaned by the City Parks during the winter “off season.’1Formal OpeningThe formal opening was December 1,1944, with The Old Warhorse. Four more plays followed during that first season and two more successful years followed with five play schedules before the group was notified that the East Main location would no longer be available to them.Search for a permanent location started, and March 1, 1948, the Garden City Heights World War Veterans Memorial Building was purchased, and again the membership went into action remodeling, furnishing and decorating the new home. Loyal townspeople came forth with $100 Life Memberships to enable the group to launch the Theatre with a smaller mortgage. Every penny was pinched before it was spent — the plays were good and well attended — and within three years the original expenditure of $22,500 had been reduced to a mortgage of $6,000.By the end of the 1952-53 season, the Theatre felt it was on a sound enough financial footing to again borrow money and make a much needed enlargement of the stage area and add two large dressing rooms, rest rooms and a wardrobe and properties area to the downstairs level. For the first time a summer session Children’s Theatre was added now, and this met with enthusiastic response from the town. Classes in acting and stage techniques culminated in a performance for the public at the end of the series.All VolunteersAll phases of the Theatre up to this point had been done with volunteer help. No person was paid for any part of his time or labor ~~ and the theatre prospered financially. However, it became increasingly difficult to find qualified directors who were willing to take on a play . . . and the Board was faced with the problem of not being able to fulfill its season commitment in 1961-62. So the possibility of bringing in a paid director-manager was discussed and it was decided to trv thisexperiment for three years, and see if the program could Ik? enlarged enough to meet the additional financial demands. Since the indebtedness was new all paid off it was possible to agaki obtain a loan to supplement the cash in the treasury to guarantee the salary of the paid director.This experiment did not work financially. The members of the theatre benefitted greatly from the knowledge and training of professionals, but at the end of the third year the Theatre was $3,000 in debt on current bills, plus the amount of the mortgage, so, with regret, the idea of paid personnel was dropped and the Theatre went back to voluntary directors.A Guild was quickly organized to raise money for payment of the current bills, and with lots of back-breaking labor through various projects these obligations were cleared up, and a little surplus money was set aside for redecorating the theatre again — the result of which is the new carpet and paint through the foyer and down to the lower level.First Auto Show in 1917Remember the Apperson, the Ben Hur, the Bour Davis and the Crow-Elkhart? Do you recall the Pilgrim, the Pathfinder or the Roamer?As any old-timer or auto buff might tell you, they were all automobiles — and just a few of the 97 different makes ofAmerican-made “mechanical wonders” lavishly displayed at the First National Automobile Show of 1917 in New York’s famed old Grand Central Palace.Other than the First World War then raging across the Atlantic, the auto show was the most talked-about happening of its day. Upwards of a million persons attended the extravaganza one newspaperman described as “a day-in and day-out motoring circus,” and their enthusiasm helped to make the automotive show a national institution from thattime onward.The early-day car manufacturers sent an impressive array of 323 different models of their products to the 1917 inaugural of the industry-wide event. Approximately 90 per cent of the so-labeled “dream-puffs” on display were gasoline-powered, and most of the rest were battery-operated electrics. A few were steam-driven, although that type was already declining in popularity from a still-earlier hey-day.The lowest priced vehicle on the showroom floor was a $395 Emerson, and the highest priced one was a sleek $5,900 Pierce-Arrow. The remainder ranged at all levels in between, causing the show’s sponsors to boast that “the new 1917 models will most certainly meet the requirement of any purse limitation.
Newspaper Details
Walla Walla Union Bulletin
Walla Walla, Washington, US
Sun, Feb 21, 1971
Page 149
Full Page
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Anonymous
WA, USA 25 Sep 2019
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