>> It is Wednesday, December 10th, 2014.
This is An Graham and Heather Oswald,
archivist with the Kansas State University Archives.
We are interviewing Palmer Wells in
the Studio of Audio Video
Technology Services at Kansas State.
Thank you for coming back, Palmer.
>> Good to be here.
>> Can you talk about the organizational structure of
theater square and how it evolved over time?
>> Of course in the beginning,
as I frequently said,
it's Michael and me in an answering machine,
and it took a while
to build up enough steam, if you will,
and resources to be able to hire of course,
a box office person and bookkeeper.
Usually, a lot of
these things were rolled into one person.
But we did have to have somebody to answer the phone,
and then we outsourced our accounting eventually.
So it started out very meagly that way.
Until Michael in a couple of years
was able to devote four times to the theater.
And then a few years later,
I came on board full time.
But it was essentially a skeleton staff.
And of course, we had to have a board
of directors and five member board of
directors to start off with in order to get
our 501 C3 designation.
But Michael acted as artistic director and I
acted as managing director in those early years.
And essentially, our roles were interchangeable.
The final artistic decision was left to him,
of course, but we collaborate on everything.
And he did as
much as far as
the business side of things as I did, actually.
Of course, in the beginning,
I was the one writing all the checks.
That was the basic structure.
We took a while until we were able to build up a staff,
a technical director of course,
box office manager, perhaps department person.
It was a very long time before
we were able to hire a marketing director.
And Michael and I both had journalism backgrounds,
and we had a smattering of
marketing know how and ability.
So we could handle that part of things.
And we eventually hired our own business manager.
And we continued to outsource
our book keeping and accounting and that kind of thing.
But basically, that was it.
[NOISE]
When we closed the theater,
we had a staff, I think of about 12.
And that was Box office personnel,
business technical, and the props and costumes,
a managing director, a marketing director,
and a development person.
That didn't come along until much later in our existence,
probably the last 10 years of our 30 year existence,
I guess if you will.
And that essentially was it as
far as our staff and so forth.
>> Can you give us some of the names of some of
the early people and maybe the staff that you ended with?
>> Well, where should I start.
Kathy, if I can remember the name going back that far,
that's been over 30 years.
I do well recall that Kathy Mascarla was
our first, I'll take that back.
It was the Anna Collins.
Was our very first box office manager.
Kathy Mascarla came on as a combination business manager,
box office manager, marketing director.
What do you have it?
Mainstay of the theater really became
Gin Bradley who was something a local personality.
And she became jack of all trades for us,
looked after costumes,
[NOISE]
tended to our we called the flower alley,
which is the brick alleyway alongside the theater,
and generally kept order
[LAUGHTER]
around the green maintain costume.
Kathleen Parish was our props person.
Our last marketing manager was M J Conboy,
and I'm having trouble remember.
There was quite a turnover in
our development director area.
But one of them who was with us longest
was Alson Victor who now works for Council University.
And Ray Varney was our managing director.
And up until Ray Varney came
along and this was about five years before we close,
I had about 10 years after Michael's death.
I had served as both artistic director
and business managing director.
I had basically been
juggling those two responsibilities
throughout Michael's ill health,
which went on for probably three years or so.
And we did hire someone
for a short period of
time immediately after Michael's death,
but that didn't work out.
So I just assumed both responsibility as
producing director which incorporated
all of both responsibilities.
So it's a timely,
[NOISE]
I was still producing director,
but we had a managing director who had come along and
assumed a lot of the administrative responsibilities.
So I was only responsible for choosing the programming,
picking the programming, and directors,
and all the artistic side of our production.
Of course, we had a technical director
who [NOISE] was responsible for hiring
outside designers and people
who handle the technical title of productions.
I also not to mention one other person,
and we did have
an Artistic associate an actress primarily,
Jessica Phelps West, who was quite
valuable in reading plays.
Of course, this is an ongoing process,
reading plays, seeing plays,
keeping up with the New York Times,
what's going on in the New York theater world,
and major regional theaters,
what's going on there.
Just keeping up with the theater scene in general.
And we were both doing that.
And we frequently made trips not to New York,
but to original theaters as well,
to scout shows, and just to
see what we thought might be
important works that we might be interested in.
So pretty much some our staff,
unless I left out any holes
that I might need to fill for you?
>> I think that's fine. Can you talk a little bit
about where you went to
scout new plays regionally and maybe some of
the actions that you saw that you brought down?
>> I frequently saw shows at Barter Theater in Abingdon,
Virginia, which is within driving distance.
And well, one of the shows we picked up from there was,
Keep on the Sunny Side,
which was a work that they developed.
And it's about the Carter family.
I don't know if you call it strictly Gospel, maybe.
>> Gospel country.
That family and they're quite well-known, of course.
They had developed a show about them and
they from that local area.
And so we secured
the rights to that to bring it to our theater,
and it was quite successful.
I had been interested in doing a show about
Patrick Klein and so I saw
a production of always Patrick Klein in Louisville.
And that proved to be one
that we added to our programming.
Another was a show about NASCAR racing
called trading paint also.
And in conjunction with
this was some collaborating
that we did with the Trial theaters.
And one was Etcetera Theater in Cincinnati.
And we did a co-production with
them and original work by Lee Blessing.
And of course, we were back and forth.
And the theater in Aston Alabama,
we coproduced a so-called a A Walk in the Woods,
also by Lee Blessing.
We coproduced a work by them.
And we collaborated as much as we
possibly could with other theaters.
And there's frequently an exchange of ideas and directors
and those kinds of things with local theaters,
as well as some of the regional theaters.
>> Can you talk about balancing of
the personal and professional aspects
of your life with Michael?
>> Well, it was hard to
say where one ended and the other began.
It frequently followed us
home when we were working at the theater.
Our life at the theater,
became as much of our home life as has ever.
And of course, we took trips recently,
we took to New York and other places
to see strictly there.
Trip to London, of course,
and which neither of
us neither of us had ever been to London.
So getting familiar with
the London theater scene was quite interesting.
And going to Louisville too,
for the hu Manifest there,
which is all original works,
they have a festival in the spring every year.
And we did one show from there,
called the "Piece of My Heart",
which is about Vietnam veterans
who were telling their individual stories.
It was quite a successful for them,
and we did production of it ourselves also.
And some shows by
John Jory with the artistic director at hu Manifest.
And he is rumored to have been
the author of these plays that we did.
And we did a couple of works by
him that had premiere at hu Manifest.
I'm trying to say there may have been others,
but those are the ones that I can remember.
We worked with Alliance Theater on some things.
They had a wonderful props and scenic department.
And if I remember on one occasion,
they let us know that they were clearing out a lot
of items and come have a look if we wanted things.
So of course, we left at that opportunity.
And bring back a good piece
of scenery and that kind
of thing that we've made good use of.
>> How was theater in Square perceived in Atlanta?
>> In Atlanta or Marietta or just a whole metro area?
>> Those would all be wonderful to address.
>> Well, I would like to think in a positive light,
in all three areas.
We drew audience from
a wide geographic area from as far North like
Cherry Log way up in I think Gilmer County, Dalton.
We even had a couple of subscribers from Chattanooga,
who told me that they would come
down and spend the weekend in Mario,
and go see the show.
We had subscribers from a far South.
It's Morrow and Peachtree City, of course,
in Decatur and DeKalb County
and Northcross over and there.
So we drew from a wide area in metro region,
quite a few from Buckhead and Atlanta proper.
So I thought that was a good testimonial
being a regional traction.
And of course, the major part of
our subscriber base came from Marietta and Cobb County.
But there are [inaudible]
Gwinnett newspaper reviewed our shows at
the time they had a reviewer and as well as,
of course, the papers, certain voice,
the Constitution,
creative loafing and later on there were others.
And for a time when WABE had a reviewer we were reviewed
by them,` and I was
quite pleased with the positive attention
that we got from the press.
And like I said,
we had some quite sophisticated members
of our theater going audience,
some people who used to tell us about shows
they had seen in London or some place and say,
all to check this out,
you all look into this and of
course on occasion that produced results.
One was Shirley Valentine
which was a huge success for us.
And somebody had told us
about it they had seen it in London and said,
you are 1`on to check out the show.
And we did it with a local actress Brenda Bym
who is quite well known locally as an actress.
And so shows came to us in that manner frequently.
People would tell us about things they
had seen and enjoyed seeing
other theaters outside of the local area.
But I think we were generally perceived in
a positive light by locals in Marietta,
Atlanta as well as the Atlanta metro area.
I'm happy to say.
>> You had many successful productions,
were there any productions that were less well received?
>> Yeah. There were.
I like to forget about those.
But audience that they were very forgiving.
I had someone tell me that we trust you,
you bring such variety to the theater and
your programming that we'd like being surprised.
If we're not familiar with the show,
we'll trust your judgment.
Sometimes that happens to go awry.
But again, not every production
was we received 100 percent if that happened,
that would be terrible I think but generally speaking,
most of our productions were well received and we had
those patrons who weren't shy about telling us,
well, that one fell little short.
And especially our more sophisticated tear gas,
they would not hesitate to tell us
that they didn't really care for that show.
Sometimes it had to do with subject matter,
sometimes it had to do with language within the show.
But more often than not,
I said our audience,
our subscriber base in particular was very sophisticated
and they were not bothered by those things,
especially if the show had credentials like had
been a show that
had won awards in New York or London or some place.
And that was one thing
that always factored into our choice of programming.
We didn't try to purposefully inflict
a challenging show on
our audience just for the sake of doing it, of course.
But we'd like to think that a show had
merits that would make it a standout production.
And somewhat what ended up being pretty challenging,
but I think in the long run our patients appreciated
the breadth and depth
of programming that we offered over the years.
>> So were the subscriber or audience comments
unsolicited or did you have
a mechanism for them to make comments?
>> Well, we had both.
Some are unsolicited,
and then to get feedback,
we had for a long time
up until probably the last five years of our existence.
We did our own award ceremonies.
We call it the Jenny Award which was
named for one of our very first board members,
Jenny Tate Anderson, who
was a local patron of the art and
quite an outstanding civic leader
and we talked to her in the beginning,
she became one of our first board members.
And I have to say largely instrumental in
being at least with the alter established if you will,
Marietta community and she
was very important to us in the beginning.
So we named the award for her.
We did the award all of years,
we had our subscribers vote for their favorites
in the best acting and
supporting acting and technical areas categories.
And so this gave us some feedback
on the types of shows that we were doing.
And frequently, they would add comments to
their ballot that they submitted
about shows that we had done.
They were mostly positive but
now and then we'd get a criticism,
constructive criticism,
that was valuable to us as far as feedback.
And just being present at the productions,
people offered their comments about
the most recent show of the show they had
just seen and for a long time,
excuse me, Michael and I used to be present
at all of the shows
and especially at the end
of the show to say good night to patrons.
There are now at the beginning to make
a curtain speech but
also to say goodbye to patrons since they were leaving.
And sometimes we could get an idea
about the popularity or
how well the show had been received.
And that's the interesting area feedback
was from local restaurant owner.
Because so many of our patients,
of course, would have have dinner.
Prior to the show or after the show.
But it got to be a metric for the restaurant owners,
they would say, this show is not doing quite as well.
That show was great,
or they had see it was bringing them good business.
So they could tell
pretty much how well a show was doing for us
and word of mouth was
the best marketing tool you can have.
And that's why we always look to
show that even the worst ones are the ones that were,
not worse but, it's not as well received.
We build an audience draw.
By the end we started up with three week runs,
then we built up to
four and five and eventually six week runs.
And by the end of the run, in most cases,
except for the least successful shows,
we were filling houses,
and turning people away.
So that indicated to us that word of mouth had
been an important factor in that.
So were number of methods of
determining how well our shows were doing.
Not only the reviews,
which were also important.
And then we had people like a patron from Kenesaw,
several from a theater area who frequented the theater,
and we would talk to them on occasion,
about shows that we were doing.
So again, there was
a wide area and we valued
the feedback, negative or positive.
We always wanted to hear from our patients.
>> You mentioned restaurant owners.
Was there a lot of interaction
between local Marietta and business owners?
>> Yes. We always had
an opening night reception after all of our shows.
And we worked with the restaurants in doing those after
show receptions and they
would offer a deal for theater goers.
Now, I bring your tickets and get 10% off
or free dessert or something like that.
And as well as the advertising in our playbill.
That was a form of support that we got
from a number of businesses as well,
other types of business other than restaurants as well.
But we had good relations with all of them.
They valued what we
meant to the square the traffic
that we brought to the square.
>> Can you talk about how you and
Michael financed the theater?
>> Well, in the beginning, it was our own money.
It was probably about $3,000 that we
used by mostly lumber and stuff to build
bills of platforms for the stage and
the risers and those things.
I know we did get a substantial for us at the time,
grant from IBM to buy lighting equipment.
And it was our start up stage,
and this was quite unusual for them to make
a grant to a start up organization.
But it helped us enormously,
to buy the lighting equipment,
for our very first production.
And we had no individual contribution at that time.
I remember the very first unsolicited contribution we
got was from a woman who later became mayor of Maria,
Ansley Meyers, and it was a check for $250.
I thought, this is really terrific.
But prior to that,
we had just been going on ticket sales alone.
And we used to be cited by,
not on the Georgia Council for the Arts,
but we were frequently mentioned by
local theater writers for
being able to largely
support ourselves through ticket sales.
For a long time,
our ratio of unearned income contributed income,
if you will, to contributed income,
contributions, and those things.
Contributed income was very low and
our unearned income was very high.
And we were frequently cited as a model for this
because the normal ratio was more like 50 50,
contributed to earned or higher
for more dependent on
contributed income and from ticket sales.
So that made us a bit unusual, I think.
But the economy always
played into things figured into that equation as well.
But generally, even to the very end,
we were much more dependent on
ticket sales than from contributed income.
>> Can I just ask,
was that a conscious decision on your part?
>> No. We would love to had much point.
We worked hard, again,
contributed to the income.
We had some very devoted patients
who were regular contributors.
But it was never quite enough.
But we would love to have
had a larger contributor base than we had.
But we were overjoyed when our shots
were successful and we sold a lot of tickets, of course.
But it always seemed that we could
never get enough of the contributed income.
One was the corporate community,
we felt that we were never able
to get enough response
from them as we would like to have.
But there were things like
the Georgia Council for the Arts,
even the National Endowment for the arts,
we got support from them.
And there were some large local contributors.
But mostly of the small contributions
were mostly of the smaller variety.
But we've worked hard with that as
well as working hard say selling tickets.
But it just became a fact that we
were largely supported by ticket sales.
>> Can you talk about the development
and growth of the subscriber base?
>> The development and?
>> Growth of the subscriber base.
>> Oh, okay. I remember that after our first production,
I think there were a fewer than 200 in the first season.
And that grew incrementally over the first few years.
We got to as high as 4,500 subscribers.
And then we took a dip at
about the time of the Cobb County resolution
and controversy and things surrounding that we lost over
1,000 subscribers at that time.
And by the time we closed,
we were about 3,500 subscribers.
And like I said,
they came from a wide area.
By the time we
enlarged the theater to the capacity was when we closed.
It pretty much remained around 3,000, 3,500 and there.
>> Can you talk about
the expansion of the theater over time?
>> The theater's growth was pretty much organic.
It grew in income.
We started out with a five seats in
the all train depot of the Marietta railway station.
And we outgrew that after three years,
and by that time,
there was a store that housed a furniture show room,
which was just down the alley next block over.
And we saw it had
been originally a building that had been built
around the turn of
the 20th century early 1900s
and used as a cotton waste station.
And I eventually became
various things to an automobile show room.
I was told that at one time,
it was even Bowling Alley,
and it had enough height that we could
rise us to accommodate the theater guards patient.
And so by the time we were looking
at locations to move the theater
to because we obviously outgrown the 85 seats.
We couldn't accommodate everybody.
And by that time,
the furniture show room became available
and we rented that and renovated
that and had 165 seats in there initially.
And that works well for us until we saw
the possibility of expanding that and adding
another 65 or so seats to bring our capacity up to 225.
And in the meantime,
we had begun to devour other parts of this building
knocking out walls and expanding into what used to be
a bridle shop and what used to
be a Redwood furniture manufacturing area,
which eventually we also
developed into a performing space,
and we called it our alley stage,
where we were doing.
Oh, I guess you call a little more smaller
scale works even than
what we were doing on our main stage,
and a little more adventurous works, if you will.
A little more challenging,
more leading edge works.
And we had over 100 seats in there in that second space.
We had expanded inside the building where we were in,
we took over also staired areas
for office administrative spaces,
and a rehearsal space,
and also a place for classrooms.
So we just began
to spread our tentacles out throughout the building.
Because over the years,
these different activities had
become something of a problem.
Finding space big enough for rehearsals.
We rehearsed off site
at Southern [inaudible] Tech and where we also performed,
as well as we performed at Kansas University as well.
And we've had rehearsals in our living room.
At our house, was only a
couple of blocks away from the theater.
But in classrooms, having space for
classrooms became a bit of a problem.
Board meetings, things like that,
just finding the space,
we had some board members, of course,
who offered their own board rooms for
us whenever that was possible.
But finding spaces for
the different activities sometimes became challenging,
but we used to find a way.
>> Do you recall the approximate years
you made these expansions?
>> Well, the first one came
after three years of our existence.
Then the next incremental expansion
was 1985, and then
the next large expansion came in 1993,
that was going from 160 seats to 225.
And then we added our alley stage in 1990 or '91.
And I forget. Well, we added some administrative spaces.
Again, like in 1993,
and then we had one major capital campaign.
We had never had a capital campaign
until trying to remember the year.
It must have been 2004 or '05.
When we had a drive to raise over $1 million
to expand our lobby area, which was minuscule.
It was tiny.
And on a rainy evening when we had a performance,
it was really difficult to get everybody into that lobby.
Otherwise, people were able to spill up.
And if the weather was nice,
we would spill up onto the outdoor area,
the brick courtyard area.
But we sorely needed the expanded lobby.
So having that campaign allowed
us to increase the size of our scene building shop,
upgrade dressing rooms for
the actors, administrative spaces,
and a large marquee which had
the moving marquee with
the lights and everything was very spicy for us.
So that was quite an undertaking.
It ended up being well over $1 million,
but we braised some of that
in large contributions like Waterford Center,
and some major zone that made large contributions.
But that was by far the largest renovation.
But again, looking back on it,
it was all incremental slowly, slowly.
We even took over the building that we were in.
I may have mentioned that the front part of it
had been an automobile show room, at one time.
And in the rear,
it had also been a automobile shop or a repair shop.
And there was a very large industrial elevator
that went from the first floor up to the second floor.
And The repair area
for the automobiles was on the second level.
So they would drive through
and take the elevator up to the second level for repairs.
So we took over that driveway area,
which had been a bridal shop.
We took that over for administrative offices,
and even had the engineers
look at the elevator to reinforce it,
so that it was permanently situated,
because the [inaudible],
it wasn't used, it wasn't functional.
So we had to reinforce and use it for
office spaces and our dressing room
on the first level and storage area on the second level.
But these things happened incrementally.
When we would get ahead enough,
we would go ahead and make
improvements or on occasion borrow money,
like Downtown Maria development authority
at one point was a good source
of funds for us to make improvements.
And we got loans from them on a couple of occasions.
And even a couple of occasions,
mortgaged our own house.
On one occasion, it was just to get operating money.
On another occasion it was
for improvements to the theater.
At that point or those occasion,
those points in the theaters existence,
we had the confidence that we would be
able to repay those loans
and repay the mortgage on our house.
We had enough confidence in the success of the theater.
We knew we weren't going to lose our home at any rate.
[NOISE]
>> So you mentioned educational
programming that you offered.
Can you talk about how your tentacles
spread out to other activities
that weren't production related?
>> Yes. We had ventured into some Chilton, for one thing.
It was indicated to us fairly early on that there
was a need for classes,
not only for adults,
but for children as well.
And our first classes were for adults.
And we have fortunately had a number of actors
who had taken on
those activities as well.
And then we got into the area of classes,
largely, for children,
and some summer camps.
It was a while before we hired on
a staff person as an education director.
We eventually did do that.
But we would just usually hire somebody, an actor.
And we even had classes and playwriting.
Philip DePoy, a local playwright,
had playwriting classes for us.
But it was never much of a money making
proposition as much as
just being a good resource for parents and
for adults who were interested in
learning more about theater
or more about acting or playwriting.
Well, I think we even had a class in directing
and stage fighting,
and acrobatics, and that kind of thing.
>> So can you talk about your decision to move from
using amateur actors to using union actors?
>> Yeah, I think it was
like five years into our existence
before we ever hired a professional actors,
because it's something that we felt, eventually,
if we kept pace
with what was happening on the theater scene in Atlanta,
more and more actors were joining the actors' union.
And we wanted to
give those actors a place to work,
and as well as a lot of them who had
worked for us before they became union actors,
we wanted them to continue to work for us.
So it was a matter of preserving the quality
of what we were doing and keeping up
with the theater scene in Atlanta,
and Actors' Equity, by that time,
had a program called
Small Professional Theater's contracts.
They had various types of contracts.
You could do a guest artist contract,
where you didn't have to have
a seasonal contract with Actors' Equity,
but you could just hire on an individual actor,
say, for one production.
We started out that way,
so it was slowly.
We started out with guest artists,
and then Actors' Equity had
this small professional theater contract
for a seasonal actor in
which you hired a percentage of your actors,
and the requirement was
that you had to hire
a percentage of actors who were union actors.
And of course, there was the union scale and so forth.
So it's something that we always aspired to.
It took like about five years before we
thought we were in stable enough position that
we could go ahead and become a part of the actors' union.
>> Can you talk about the makeup
of the Board of Directors,
so initially, and then how that changed over time?
>> We started out with
five board members at the beginning.
And that's the basic requirement
actually for you 501(c)(3).
But, of course,
we wanted to expand that to
more influential community leaders,
people who could hopefully help us out with our finances,
as well as give us professional support.
We wanted an accountant.
We wanted lawyers.
We wanted people with different areas of knowledge,
as well as different spheres of influence.
Bankers were always helpful.
And of course, we had
a number of medical professional people.
And our corporate officers
and just across the board,
all types of professions.
But we had always hoped
that they would not only be able to bring us
to port through their knowledge of
business and whatever profession they were in,
but also to help us out with
using their knowledge of the community,
their professional contexts,
and so forth, and securing not only patrons,
but contributions as well.
By the time we closed,
we had, I think, 14 or 15,
or maybe 16 board members.
Of course, when you run into an economic downturn,
like we had like in 2008 and '9,
it's hard to get people to come onto the board
because they are afraid maybe you're going to go under,
or you're going to collapse because you don't have
the amount of contributed income
that you might need to continue.
Generally, it was fairly
easy to get board members, and good ones.
>> Did you notice a change in the makeup of the board
after the Cobb County resolution, or did it stay?
>> I notice a change.
>> In the makeup of the board.
>> Not really. We lost
some board member as a result of that.
Some of them wanted to shy away from
the controversy because the controversy
continued and the theater seemed to
be a lightning rod for a lot of it.
It continued long after
that initial resolution was adopted,
because there was a strong effort to
have that resolution rescinded.
And there was a local organization that
was formed just for that purpose.
And a number of
them were reluctant to
be a part of the theater for whatever reason.
Their own profession, their own personal opinions.
I suppose there were various reasons.
But we did lose
at least two board members directly as a result of that.
>> And the local organization that you mentioned,
was that Cobb Citizens Coalition?
>> Yes. Exactly.
>> Can you talk about the community
reaction to Lips Together,
Teeth Apart and how that got the whole thing started?
>> Well, first of all, our patrons,
largely were very supportive.
I mentioned earlier about
the Jenny's awards and the audience voting.
They voted that their favorite show of the year.
And we had so many of them who had seen it and said,
"Well, I don't understand this.
It is such a wonderful show."
And they just couldn't understand what it was all about.
As far as the community,
like all of those things,
it has a way of becoming confused.
And I remember one anecdote that was told to me about,
and it's kind of an indication of
the way things can get distorted.
I guess it was in a beauty parlor.
One lady was over her to characterize us,
that theater down the street that shows us porn movies.
And, this was her perception of what she had just heard.
It's like the old game you play gossip.
It goes around and ends up being
a completely unrecognizable story at the end,
gets changed along the way.
So I'm sure that was
that element of what the local perception was.
Well, it became a thing about homosexuality, of course,
and that was the primary driving force
behind the commissioner who instituted the resolution,
who was responsible for
bringing it before the Board of Commissioners.
And so I remember at
the hearings that the Commission held
on changing the counties adopting the resolution.
It was pretty much even very polarized.
It was essentially two camps on either side of
the Board of Commissioners' auditorium.
And one side was very supportive and
one side was very anti.
And it was quite alarming and interesting,
a bit upsetting, as you could well imagine,
because we had no intention of getting
into a controversial area such as that.
And all we want to do is produce good.
Mike and I had seen lips together,
Chief apart in New York,
and loved the show and said,
"We got to do it," even though it had its challenges,
not subject matter,
but things like having a pool of water
with 1100 gallons of water,
that served as the swimming pool.
That was the selling.
And so it had its challenges.
But we felt this show
had tremendous merits and it had won several awards.
So we felt that it was well worth doing.
And so did our regular patrons.
We had those who criticized us for doing it,
but they were very small number.
>> The experience with
that production and with the resolution,
did it at all change how you selected future productions?
Did you shy away from anything for a while?
>> No, we didn't.
We we had done shows prior to
that that had homosexual characters,
that dealt with maybe
not at entirely thematically about homosexuality,
but touched on homosexuality,
but we continue to do shows.
Two, which is about Truman Capote,
a one person show.
The three trials of Oscar Wilde.
Those are two that come to mind immediately.
Independence, a show by Lee Blessing
had a lesbian character in it.
But, we only program
those types of shows that
included those themes and characters.
But a lot of social issues across the board,
alcoholism, adoption, abortion.
Just a whole range of
social issues that our plays touched on.
So we didn't shy away from them.
We thought those were important enough
that they deserved to be seen by our audiences.
>> And you also mentioned losing
board members and subscribers because
of the resolution and the controversy.
Did you have any personal repercussions from that?
>> Personal.
>> Things are that non-theater related.
Did people change towards you or Michael?
>> Not perceptibly.
I don't think so.
We had a lot of people we didn't know who were incensed
by the developments that they felt
like reaching out to us and saying,
bravo, and here's a check,
and thanks for what you're
doing and keep up the good work.
Those kinds of things.
I don't think we were ostracized in any way,
or at least that we could perceive of.
And we just kept going about
our business as we always had.
We never made any claims
to be anything other than what we were,
and we didn't try to conceal the fact that
we shared a home together just off the square,
and we didn't feel the need to look
like a heterosexual men
and have dates when we went on different occasions.
So we didn't feel the need to do any of that.
We just kept doing things that we always had done.
And again, like I say,
there was nothing directly directed at us.
I think, if anything,
it gained us friends.
And I think especially for actors,
because we had people
tell us on more than one occasion
that they would go for an audition,
and on the resume they would have that they worked at
theater in the square in Marietta,
Georgia, and that would
immediately be a conversation starter for them.
So it was helpful in some ways like that for people.
>> So can you talk about your perceptions for
the motivation behind the anti-gay resolution in '93,
as well as the cutting of the arts funding?
>> It was interesting
that just prior to the time that our show opened,
I guess the time probably might have
been like March or April,
there was a large meeting of
some conservative religious leaders in Marietta,
and they were quite vocal about wanting to
insert themselves into what they
considered arts scene that was immoral
and being a bad influence on the public.
And I think this show
played into the hands of some of those religious leaders.
And I think you have to remember
also that it was not only here,
but throughout the country that this was prevalent,
because it seemed like
the conservative religious organizations were,
well, for lack of a better way of expressing it,
looking for causes to fire up their base
to get contributions for their religious organizations.
So the best way to do that and get
attention was attacking what
they considered pornographic or immoral artwork,
performing arts, as well as other artistic works.
Robert Malo comes to mind.
It's been a while back.
I can't remember others,
but there were a number of others as well.
And they attacked the National Endowments for the Arts
for funding these organizations.
And so getting to the county was a way
of also getting funding,
because at this point,
we were getting funding
from the county which amounted to like about $25,000,
which was a sizable portion of our budget, and by far,
the largest amount that
had been granted to arts organizations in Cobb County.
And by this time,
there was a granting organization in
the county that oversaw
the funding and how the funds were distributed.
So we were one of
the largest beneficiaries of the funding.
So I think this was seen by religious organizations
as a way to implement
their efforts to diminish
the influence of arts organization
they thought were bad for the community.
And [inaudible], who is this one commissioner,
in our case,
they were able to succeed.
But like I say, this whole effort
across the country was pretty pervasive, I think.
>> Can you talk about attending the commission meetings?
You've already mentioned how polarized they were.
But maybe talk a little bit more
about the experience of attending them,
and something about your involvement
in the protests about the resolution.
>> Well, of course,
we were there for all the protests,
if there was addressing
the crowds or whether we were part of that,
and of course, being
present was something I felt was important.
As far as attending meetings,
we spoke to the commissioners on
our behalf and on behalf of
arts funding, preserving arts funding.
It evolved into a thing
where there was strong opposition
to arts funding as well as the anti-gay resolution.
So there were those two prongs to the thing.
Of course, we continued to be outspoken
as far as supporting arts funding,
as well as the right to
produce the kinds of shows we thought were
important for our patrons
and important to bring to the community,
and not to be censored.
Censorship was also a part of it.
We felt very strongly about
being opposed to any kind of censorship very definitely.
I think probably even stronger than
opposing abandoning the funding
for the arts organizations.
But to me, it was very stressful time.
I think particularly for Michael who had been
diagnosed as being HIV positive,
probably a year or two before that.
And I think that the stress of all of
this certainly hastened the worsening of his illness.
And he contracted pneumonia a few months after
that and was hospitalized for over two months,
and was in ICU and on
a ventilator for a long period of time.
And I think I attributed
a lot of it as being brought on by the stress of this.
People contacting us depressed.
It was a constant thing dealing with depressed.
We had bomb threats,
people offering their criticism and then calling us.
It was just a very stressful time all around.
And attending the commission meetings,
which were pretty volatile.
By virtue of bringing out
opposing viewpoint, I remember it.
One of the rallies that were held
in the square, of course,
drew a number of opponents who had signs like,
I remember one, in particular,
I thank God for aid,
and things like that were
just very repugnant, very repulsive.
And I remember one of the speakers at
world commission meetings says something to the effect.
This is not San Francisco,
or this is not New York,
this is Cobb County.
[LAUGHTER]
So there was a very narrow
view off and express.
So it was really difficult to deal with.
But again, we had a lot of good, loyal,
devoted supporters, and the formation of
Cobb citizens call certainly was heartening.
And just hearing from a lot of our patients and
longtime supporters was also very encouraging for us,
gave us good moral support.
>> And did you get support from
the Atlanta Arts community as well,
or was it mostly local or you'd
spoken about some national support
that you've gotten as well?
>> Yes, we did. We got a lot of nickel and dimes,
if you will, tricks from various parts of the country.
But also from people like Joy Mover and Paul Newman.
And Joy Mover of course,
spent a good deal of her early youth in Marriott,
went to Marietta High School, I think.
And she came along and offered to
donate $25,000 on condition that it be matched.
And It was not only matched by individual contributors,
but we had one individual
who came out and gave us the fall amount in $25,000.
And the business community in Atlanta also stepped up,
and I remember we were invited
to season opening of Alias Theater in downtown Atlanta.
And they took us on the soars of the show,
and number of the individual board members,
and the mayor of Atlanta were there,
and they were particularly
praising us for what we had done,
and these business leaders all kicked
in over $30,000 to contribute to the theater.
So overall, as far as funding
and financing, we benefited greatly.
It was quite a windfall for us.
But it didn't last too long
because we lost over 1,000 subscribers,
as I say, at least two board members.
And of course, along with those subscribers,
went a lot of contributions
that we had been dependent on.
So it greatly impacted us.
Initially in a very positive way financially,
but that gradually caught up with us,
and it wasn't long before we were experiencing
really stressful financial times because
of having lost contributors and subscribers.
>> And how long do you think it took
you to get back to that?
>> I would say it took us at least two or three years
before we ever got back to the level where we were,
and getting back to those subscribers that we lost,
not the same ones,
but building our subscriber base
back up to where it had been prior to that,
which was about 4,000.
>> So it wasn't about that long.
But it went on for years,
and we still hear from people who questions about that.
Because it's spilled over
into the anti-gay resolute has spilled over
into opposition to Cobb County as
being a location for a venue for the Olympics,
which came along in 1996.
And a lot of people heard about it that way,
as well as having heard about it
through the theater production
of the lips together [inaudible] a part.
So we were in the press needless
to say quite a bit, quite a lot.
>> You said that that was a good thing for the actors.
Was it positive for the theater
or it did have
its challenge of being associated with Cobb County?
>> Well, I think in the long run it was positive for.
We lost those subscribers and
we lost those contributors,
but we kept doing what we were doing,
we kept doing what we thought was quality work,
and we built ourselves back up and,
whether or not they want to support us as a way
of showing they were
opposed to the commission's actions or not,
I don't know, but I'd like to
think it because we continued
doing just what we were doing before.
Quality theater and just trying as
best as we could to ignore what had gone on,
and outside and politics.
>> Can you talk more about
Michael's diagnosis with HIV and how
his responsibilities with Peter
transitioned as the disease progressed?
>> Well, it went on for quite a while.
And before he was finally diagnosed,
there were a number of belts with different illness.
And it I was debilitating,
there was a long period of hospitalization,
and then there was a period where he
recovered to the point where
he was able to come back to work full time,
and even directed a couple of
shows before it became
obvious that he could no longer work.
And like I say, it was just so debilitating that
he was homebound, actually.
And I was his primary caregiver for a very long time,
and so juggling that with responsibilities
at the theater and caring for
him before we were finally able to get
a care caregiver to
visit regularly and that kind of thing.
It it was quite difficult for a long time.
>> Did you ever take
a leave of absence from the theater while
you were his primary caregiver or were
you still there at that time?
>> No. I think one thing to
help because I lived so close by.
I could if I were needed to be there for him,
I was only five minutes away.
And so I was able to do that,
and not have to be present with him all the time.
And up until, actually a short time before he passed away,
he was able to do things for himself a lot.
He just wasn't able to get out and go to work and,
he didn't have a stamina,
of course, for that.
Up until just before he
died, he was able to do quite a lot.
>> Was it difficult on Michael to not
be unactively involved in the theater?
>> Was it?
>> Difficult on Michael to not be
actively involved in the theater.
Did he want to hear about everything that was going on?
>> Yeah. And he was he continued to do things,
and he had been
co-directing the last show that he was involved in.
And it got to the point
where he was writing his voice was affected.
And so his speech was inaudible,
most of the time and even his writing was illegible.
But he nevertheless tried.
He was trying to give direction,
he was trying to still be a part of things.
He still wanted to
inject himself into what was going on at the theater.
And like we all do,
had a strict a vanity they didn't want people to see him.
He had become considerably emaciated and nevertheless,
he appreciated some of
the actors he really liked and respected.
He appreciated seeing them and hearing
them told about what was going
on and gossip and that thing.
So he very much wanted
to still participated at
this point that he took as much as he could.
>> Can you talk a bit about
Michael's death and how it affected you?
>> Well, of course,
it was unbelievably sad,
and it was inevitable.
The doctor had said that he had done everything
he could but of course,
it affected me and affected everybody at the theater.
It was quite a sad time for all of us
and he was such a charismatic character,
known throughout, I think
the community and certainly the theater community.
That it was seen as quite a loss.
A huge overflow crowd to the theater
at the memorial service forum.
Of course, at my personal loss
I tried to estimate something like that,
it was considerable loss for all of us, it was.
>> What was it like running
the theater after Michael was gone?
>> Well, we kept on,
you just have to keep going.
I remember he died like on a Saturday and we had
a board meeting on Monday and
I wanted to continue going ahead with the board meeting.
Obviously, his death overshadowed everything, I think.
But we went ahead with that and we just kept going,
we had to keep going.
>> You mentioned you hired a
new I believe artistic director after his death,
but it didn't work out.
What led to the decision
of you taking on those dual roles?
>> What?
>> You hired an artistic
after his death and it didn't work out.
So what led to the decision of
not hiring another artistic director,
but you taking on dual roles
of managing and artistic director?
>> I think by this time I saw that I could handle
both and it was also a problem of economics.
There were both of us affected.
It hadn't worked out to
the satisfaction of the other person nor to the theater.
And initially, I said,
I'll just do it myself and see
if we can make it work because
the economics of the theater at
that point happened to be such
that we couldn't afford to hire anybody.
So I just took on both responsibilities
and offloaded a number of
administrative responsibilities to other staff members
and so that helped a lot as well.
So for instance,
our business manager took on some responsibilities.
By that time, we had a marketing and development person
who took on some administrative responsibilities,
dealings with the actors' equity.
So we had a business manager
who could assist with some of those things.
So a lot of things that I had been doing as
managing director were shared by other staff members,
and that enabled us also to
keep the structure of the staff, or what it was.
>> And you talked a little bit about I guess,
structurally how you took over being a producing manager.
But how did the process change for you?
Because you had,
I assume you and Michael had
bounced ideas off of each other.
How did you go from
that collaborative experience to more
individual or did you find someone else to collaborate?
>> Well, there was someone else,
like I mentioned before,
we hired an artistic associate to come in,
and that was enormously helpful in that respect.
We could bounce ideas for shows off each other and
having another resource on staff who was familiar with
the theater scene not locally but kept up
with it nationally was
also helpful as well as what I was doing.
And I could go out and see shows wherever,
so scout if you will
and the other person could do that as well.
So even though we didn't have
another person strictly devoted to artistic,
it was someone who could share those responsibilities.
>> So can you talk a little bit you've
mentioned earlier about Theater
and the scores collaborations with
Kansas State University and also with SPSU?
>> We had we did at least three prosections at Kenesaw.
And I really appreciate
what Kenesaw did for us at those times,
being able to use the larger theater here.
And then they were shows that were very successful for us
and we wanted larger space to handle the demand.
And the same thing happened at Southern Tech.
It was a larger theater and was able to meet the demand.
We did a couple of holiday
shows there and as well as Kenesaw,
the 1940s Radio Hour,
as well as Smoke on the Mountain,
which were two of our all-time most successful shows.
And we did the same thing at
Southern SPSU holiday shows
as well as the smoke on the mountain.
As well as at one point we did
a show that was running on our main stage on the square,
and it was so popular that we
decided to bring in the next show,
which is a one-person show about a banjo player.
We decided to bring that in
at SPSU and put it on their stage and
continued to run of
the other show at the theater in the square.
But in all cases,
the relationship was very good.
It was positive for both of us.
A lot of students got to see it.
We certainly made special offers
for students to see the shows
that we had at the campuses.
And in that respect,
it was good too.
As well as fostering an amiable amicable relationship
between the academic world
and the theater world.
It was a good symbiotic relationship.
>> Did you have any collaborations
with any faculty members?
>> Yes. We did.
John and Brad did some drama-tucky work for us.
>> Gentile.
>> Yes. John,
Gentile did an adaptation of
a Christmas show for us.
Sant Claus stories.
We had worked with Karen Robinson on occasion.
And of course, the number of people came to our shows,
and we had offers for students,
discount tickets and so fourth also.
>> So you touched on it a little before,
but can you talk about the changing economic conditions
and how they affected the theater?
>> Well, the impact was quite striking.
Certainly, sorry in 2008.
And one of the first things that came along
was our children shows,
we were bringing [inaudible] to kids.
We had a student MatineFrig for one show a season.
It was specifically designed to appeal to students,
classic or contemporary work
that was by an important author of that kind of thing.
The economics that hit the schools,
gas prices had skyrocketed
and it was hard for
them to afford to transport the students.
And so losing that was impact enough.
But also, we saw it right away that
it was affecting our level of contributions.
The downturn was just dramatic.
I don't remember the percentage that we lost,
but it was largely in
contributions and corporate contributions in particular.
It affected us economically.
>> And I'm sorry I just want to backtrack
for one more question.
Did your previous,
I don't know if it was a relationship with Betty Siegel,
but do you think that
that foster relationship with the school?
>> It may have, we never
talked about it between ourselves.
We always dealt with whoever
was in charge of the theater.
It may have. I don't know.
I don't know if she had
any influence in that direction or not.
She was always a very strong supporter
of the theater in the square.
And at one point, her husband,
Joel was on our board of directors.
So our own personal relationship was good as well
as her support for
what we were doing in the community with Straw.
>> Sir, can you talk about
the board's role in the decision to close the theater?
>> Well, it all had to do with economics and boards can
be a pretty unmanageable lot at times,
somewhat like hurting cats.
And I've seen this happen in other theaters.
I've seen boards not
work so well and become so adversarial.
That it affects the demise of theaters.
And I think that's obvious with us, too.
It may not be apparent to everybody,
but I certainly don't mind saying that
it certainly was a part of our demise.
Because we ended up with
a board that was largely made up of
business types and many of
whom I felt lax and appreciation for what we were doing.
And they felt, I think,
more strongly that we should be self-supporting,
and the economics had played incidents, of course,
because our contributions were at such a low-level,
and they felt a desperation,
they felt a frustration that we weren't
getting the support we were getting.
And I guess there's always a need to strike out
against what you think is wrong and whatever.
But I think a large part of it was
that we had business types.
For instance, I think it was hard for
them to understand that we
needed a larger base of contributors,
and that we could not be self-defending.
It was just an impossibility in keeping our ticket prices
as low as they were and
doing the quality of work that we were doing.
We needed other sources of
income other than from ticket sales.
And it was so hard for them as
business people to understand that.
So I think it was a complex.
It was a mixture of things.
It was a complicated situation
that created this adversarial environment.
And it got to the point where they thought
the only thing they could do was just close the theater.
We had an indebtedness of about $300,000,
and there were things that were happening.
I had identified over $300,000 worth
of potential income that we could tap into,
that could keep the theater going,
but they preferred to just close the theater altogether,
and go into bankruptcy.
I was very strongly opposed to it and
I told them that they were making a monumental mistake.
And I was just
[inaudible] to do it even though
I was a member of the board.
The executive committee at that point,
had become the driving force for
the board and they were meeting separately
outside of the regular board meetings
and making determinations about things that I
felt should have been
decision making by the entire board.
And I hate to talk about it,
but I think the ending of the theater was pretty
shabby, quite frankly.
It was done through a teleconference call.
Not an open board meeting.
There had been an open board meeting
on the previous Friday,
and they had wanted to delay closing the theater.
For one thing, give me time over the weekends to try
to identify some sources of funding, which I did.
But they wanted to meet on
Monday to make the final decision and to pull
together a press release and announce it to press
and develop a strategy to announce to staff.
And in the event that we close and determine,
I think the direction they would move as far as
bankruptcy or at least one board member
said, just let dissolve.
Which was quite a blow to me personally,
and I only was disheartened by it.
I was quite honestly pretty bitter about it,
because I felt it was
a means that we could have kept going.
>> Can you just briefly describe
what funding sources you would identify?
>> What?
>> What funding sources you would identify?
>> Well, we had one major contributor to the theater.
In the last few years of our existence,
I just came out of nowhere.
And at one point, they were giving us as much as
$250,000 in one season,
which was significant when you considered our budget,
by the time that we closed was 1.5 million, 1.4 million.
So that was a significant chunk.
And this was pretty much
an ongoing source of contributive revenue for us.
We established a good relationship and he
appreciated us and obviously, we appreciated him.
It was a family foundation.
But for some reason,
at the period where we lost that source of income,
and so out of desperation,
I went back to him at
this point and tried to make a reconnection there.
And I did.
I told them that the board was ready to pull the trigger,
and that would be the end of theatre in the square.
And I had identified some potential sources in the city,
and among the merchants.
Notably restaurant owners who
I felt that I could count on for at least $100,000.
And from $100-200,000 from
this one contributor who had been
such a big contributor
in the recent past.
And a number of others.
And so I felt there was enough that we could keep going,
but the board had determined or some board members.
I'm not sure how many of there were actually,
though it may not have been the entire board.
It may have just been the executive committee
or just a portion of the board members had
decided that it was best to close the theatre and
just get rid of our indebtedness,
and and dissolve the whole organization.
>> And was anyone prepared?
Were the staff prepared?
Were you prepared for the closing of the theater?
>> I don't know. I think I was in a shock
for good ball after it was announced.
I had proposed also that we go back to
just a skeleton organization
and try to exist with beer bones,
as well if that would be.
It was a drastic move,
but it was something that I thought could work.
But at that point,
it had gotten to that point where I
think no amount of reading I could do,
was effective at all.
It just felt helped, and there was nothing I could do.
A very disheartening occurrence it really was.
>> And can you talk about the physical process
of closing the theater?
Just the duties that were involved in that.
>> Well, the board chairman came in and met with
the entire staff on Monday,
and said that the board has made the decision that we
have to close and
everybody will have to be out by the end of the week.
And at that point,
the landlord is going padlocked doors.
[LAUGHTER] So that was
quite a blow to the staff.
Hearing that was just real difficult type.
>> Can you talk a bit about the community response
to the closing of the theater?
>> Well, it was a It's a pretty sad occasion.
We had press and TV interviews,
and people would stop by and we one lady was
outside the theater and stopped by
and wanted to know if
there's anything she could possibly do.
And we just had that kind of response.
The main thing was through the press, I think.
Of course, I had counts phone calls, and letters,
and notes from people on email and that kind of thing.
And even now, I run into people,
I haven't seen people who were regulars at the theater
that I haven't seen since they were coming to the shows,
and they will tell me how much they miss it,
and how sad it is that I had to close.
And that's been over two years.
>> And what have you been doing since the theater closed?
Talk about life after theater in the square.
>> Well, I've just become an old.
And we managed to catch up on
some reading and I love traveling,
so I've done some traveling.
I've got the trips to China,
I've been Hawaii and South America of course,
trips to New York and Spain.
And some reading I've wanted to do.
I represent college. I've never read Moby Dick.
I wanted to read Moby Dick,
and I finally got around to reading Moby Dick,
and of course, loved it. Just loved it.
That's been one thing I've been able to do reading
something other than just I love reading play,
so don't get me wrong,
but there was also things like the classics,
you know, like that that I always wanted to do.
I like photography, and especially with
digital and you can work with them and,
have your own, you
known having your own dark room kind of thing.
So that's great fun.
And I live in Lowhouse and,
then you know, I've been paying some attention to that.
I have a cabin in North Georgia in the mountains.
That's a lot of fun.
So I managed to stay busy.
>> Do you know or have you in the past belonged to
any social or community groups in Marietta,
or in Atlanta? Have you belonged to that?
>> No, I'm not that much of a joiner.
When when at the theater,
of course, I used to attend Chamber of Commerce meetings,
and at one point we were active
in Cb landmarks because I live in
a historic home off the square in
Marietta but that's about it.
No, no student clubs or anything.
I support different organizations like,
you know, Mary, not may commit consider.
Welcome to censor.
And I was on the board for a while.
But to any civic organizations
or clubs or anything like that.
>> So final question.
Is there anything we haven't
discussed that you would like to talk about or share?
>> I'm sure I'll think of 100 things after I leave,
but I can't think of anything or fan.
But I would just like to say that
I appreciate your doing this and I
appreciate you taking on
the theaters the collection
of works and videos and things
that we've passed on to you and I hope to preserve those
because I think we were a valuable part of the community,
made a good positive impact,
and I think that's still evidence
today because people haven't forgotten us.
And I am just sorry that it had to end,
but I think we had a good a good 30 year run
that produced a lot of
positive impact and a lot of good theater.
And we were good for the community.
And I would hope that someone would come along and resume
that role as part of the community.
>> Thank you so much for sharing
your time and your story.
>> Glad to do it. Thanks for having me.
>> Actually, can I just ask? Sure. Sorry. Do you have
any advice for any future theater owners in Marietta?
>> No.
Unless it's just like you follow I mean,
it sounds trite, but follow
your dream and follow your instincts.
Like I said before,
Michael and I resisted what people were telling us,
Oh, you can't start a theater in Marietta,
you're crazy, you know.
And we just ignored that.
And, you know, we had this idea and drive
and wanted so badly
to do it that we just we just kept on.
And that's why I would advise if you do,
if anybody does have that drive, it's crazy enough.
Yeah, go for it.
Yeah. That's it.
>> All right. Well, thank you very much.
>> Thank you. I appreciate it.