Barksdale and Barter

Posted by Bruce Miller

Exactly forty years ago, Barksdale Theatre was about to wrap up its one-week run of Stop the World—I Want to Get Off at Barter Theatre. This was a history-making engagement, as Barksdale was the first guest company ever to be invited to perform on the Barter Stage.

The following newspaper coverage is quoted in Muriel’s book. She doesn’t identify the newspaper, but I suspect it was either the Richmond Times-Dispatch or News Leader. No publication date is provided.

“Barksdalians To Do Play at Barter

The telephone lines and the mails are humming these days between Abingdon, Va., and Hanover Court House, respective homes to two of the state’s best-known theaters.

Barter Theater, the State Theater of Virginia and perhaps the most famous professional company in the nation, is located in the tiny mountain town of Abingdon. It’s an improbable site for a major theater, but no more so than founder Robert Porterfield’s original idea during the depression of exchanging entertainment for food.

Three hundred miles away is Hanover Court House, another small hamlet that never expected to claim the state’s first dinner-theater, Barksdale. On August 22 through August 29, Barter will be host to Barksdale’s highly-praised production of “Stop the World—I Want to Get Off.”
It all began last fall, when Porterfield saw the off-beat musical at Barksdale Hanover Tavern. What began as a casual suggestion that Burt Edwards and Nancy Kilgore re-create their leading roles at Barter, gradually ballooned into the entire Barksdale company, with the original sets and costumes by Lyde Longaker, guesting at Abingdon for a full week. All of the Barksdale cast will be together again for the event, with some taking leaves from other summer stock jobs in order to do the show.

Rehearsals begin this week, under the direction of Jay Lundy, musical direction of Dougee Zeno and choreography of Frances Wessells, who will also travel to Barter for two days of rehearsals on that stage prior to the opening.

With Edwards, who plays Littlechap, and Mrs. Kilgore, who appears as his wife and as several other women in his life, will be Carol and Bobbie Hamblett, Richmond twins who will again play the two daughters, and the singing and dancing chorus composed of Judy Ward, Patricia Story, Carol Rogers, Gina Vetter, Libby Jarratt, Henrietta Near and Melvina Gooch.”

The history-making aspect of all this, as Bob Porterfield would shortly thereafter explain to me himself (see the upcoming My Dinner with Bob Porterfield), was that in 1967 Barter Theater honestly was, as the newspaper article says, “the most famous professional (theatre) company in the nation.” Please remember that in 1948, Bob Porterfield received the first Regional Theatre Tony Award for his “Contribution to the Development of Regional Theatre.” The next such award was not presented until 1976, when it was won by Arena Stage in Washington, D. C.

The actors whom Barter hired included Gregory Peck (pictured to the right), Ernest Borgnine, Patricia Neal (pictured up and to the left), Ned Beatty and Hume Cronyn. When Bob Porterfield visited Barksdale, loved Stop the World, and invited Nancy and Burt to star in the same musical at Barter, it was a huge deal. And when Pete and Muriel responded by saying, to quote Muriel, “None of that, if you want them, you’ll have to take everybody,” they were taking a huge gamble.

Mr. Porterfield must have had tremendous respect for Barksdale, and he certainly was committed to the developing regional theatre movement. But no matter how you look at it, it was downright amazing that, in Barter’s 34th year of existence, founder Bob Porterfield invited Barksdale to be the first guest company ever to perform in his nationally prominent theatre.

In the next few days, I’ll interview Frances Wessells, Lyde Longaker and others about their Barter experience. Stay tuned.

--Bruce Miller

More photo credits: The two young lovelies are Carol Rogers and Julie Crump from the Stop the World ensemble. That's Nancy and Burt perched atop the Barter marquee, in their full Stop the World get-up. Can't you just hear the Abingdonians shouting, "Who are those two clowns on the marquee?!" The painting of Nancy, which regularly hangs in the Barksdale Willow Lawn lobby, dates back to that famous Stop the World run.

Red Hot Coffee and Cole

The intrepid Barksdale Bifocals Theatre Project crowd held their June lunch meeting last Friday, and the program focused on "Video Memories of Red Hot and Cole." Original Cole company members Phil Whiteway and Bruce Miller shared fond and hilarious memories of this legendary production with a rapt audience of about 40 theatre lovers, including Lyde Longaker (costume designer for the original Cole) and Helen Levinson (homeowner of the site where much of the original script was written).

Perhaps the most fun was had watching video clips of the Tenth Anniversary revival of Red Hot and Cole that was presented in partnership by Barksdale Theatre and Theatre IV in 1987 at the historic Empire Theatre, fourteen years before the two nonprofit theatres entered into the current strategic collaboration that we all now enjoy. It was this major revival that lured representatives of Music Theatre International down to Richmond, and that encouraged them to include Red Hot and Cole in their catalogue, enabling theatres all around the world to produce this wonderful musical in the intervening years.

A final film clip included a short segment of very dimly lit and wavering footage from the 1978 extension of the original production at Hanover Tavern. Sadly, this already decaying recording (now transferred onto a permanent DVD) is practically all that remains of the films taken of the original production. All of Barksdale Theatre’s video and audio documentation disappeared sometime prior to July 2001.

Bruce put out a plea to one and all asking anyone who had copies of video or audio archival tapes of Barksdale productions prior to that date to please donate them to the Barksdale Theatre archives at the Library of Virginia. He added that the theatre staff would be very happy to facilitate such a donation, giving the theatre opportunity to make a copy to keep in the “in-house” archives for future programs such as this one.

Highlights of Last Week

Posted by Bruce Miller
So much goes on every week at Barksdale and Theatre IV that it’s easy to let important programs sail by with little or no fanfare. Last week, for example, three modest but nonetheless gratifying theatrical events graced our stages.

On Monday, March 19, the incomparable Frances Wessells sent my spirits soaring. The two dances she staged as part of the Bifocals Vintage Variety program knocked my socks off. Frances has to be at least 80 years young—she was my dance professor when I was a student at the University of Richmond 35 years ago. Monday marked the debut of her newest work, and the reprise of a recent pas de deux. The first piece was one she choreographed for five beautiful senior actor/dancers: Lyde Longaker, Pat Lorimer, Ales Rowe, John Bailey and Vaughan Gary. She co-choreographed the eloquent and physically demanding second piece with Robbie Kintor, and she and Robbie performed it as well.

Her artistic spirit, creativity and agility were clearly in evidence in both pieces. Truth be told, I’m in awe of Frances Wessells. Both of her wonderful dances will be performed on tour along with Una Harrison’s mini-cabaret performance at senior centers throughout Greater Richmond until the end of the month, bringing uplifting artistic programming to countless performance lovers who can no longer make it out to see shows at Richmond’s theatres. Barksdale makes its Bifocals programming available to senior centers on a sliding fee scale. Everyone is served, regardless of ability to pay.

On Friday, March 23, the equally incomparable (and utterly charming) Betty Ann Grove shared memories of her four-decade career on Broadway with a rapt crowd of approximately 75 theatre lovers of all generations. For about 50 minutes Betty Ann shared stories, by turns hilarious and invigorating, and brought back to life the Broadway of a bygone era. At the end of her program, she sang an a cappella rendition of "Give My Regards to Broadway," one of the George M. Cohan classics that she and fellow cast mates immortalized in the original Broadway production of George M! You could have heard a pin drop and there wasn’t a dry eye, or an untouched heart, in the house.

On Saturday, March 24, film and TV star Barry Corbin (Urban Cowboy, Northern Exposure, One Tree Hill - pictured in upper right corner) joined Jennifer Massey, Erin Thomas, Justin Dray and The Dogtown Trio in the fourth annual Virginia Arts & Letters Live, co-produced by Barksdale Theatre and James River Writers in association with the READ Center. The brainchild of actress/author (and Barksdale favorite) Irene Ziegler, VALL features short stories by Virginia authors read aloud by Virginia’s top professional actors and accompanied by Virginia’s most magical musicians. If you missed VALL live at the Empire Theatre last weekend, you can catch it on Thanksgiving Day when the recording will be broadcast over WCVE-FM, your Community Ideas Station.

So why do we do it? With hit productions of Brooklyn Boy, Lyle Lyle Crocodile and Smoke on the Mountain all going strong last week, why pull focus by engaging in all this extra programming? It’s certainly not to make money—we lose money with each of these initiatives. It’s certainly not because we have too little to do—our 40 person staff works significant amounts of overtime as is.

The reason we engage in these outstanding programs is because both Barksdale Theatre and Theatre IV have always been committed to community leadership. We have never been arts for art’s sake organizations; we have always been arts for the community’s sake organizations. Right or wrong, it is our commitment to community that sets Barksdale and Theatre IV apart from other regional theatres around the nation and from other major performing arts groups in metro Richmond. We’re proud of how we have always served in non-traditional ways.

Each year—shoot, each week—we internally debate whether or not our nonprofit organizations are well-served by our community commitment. Please join the debate by letting us know your thoughts.

--Bruce Miller