New Music

Posted by Bruce Miller
It’s been a busy few evenings. On Saturday, the Miller family of four made it out to Eurydice at the Firehouse. All of us at Barksdale are honored to be partnering with Carol Piersol and the Firehouse Theatre Project on the Sarah Ruhl Festival. Eurydice is a greatly acclaimed component of this effort. We enjoyed it very much.

On Sunday, Terrie, Curt and I attended the kick-off concert of Stretchin’ at Barksdale—another terrific evening of entertainment. On Monday, I had a great time at Dead Man’s Cell Phone, a slightly staged reading directed by the talented Jase Smith and featuring half the cast of The Clean House and half the cast of Eurydice. Tonight, Phil and I joined the throng of celebrants at the One Night Only Concert Event—Ragtime, The Musical, presented as a fundraiser by Chase Kniffen, Peggy Thibodeau and Stage 1 Theatre Co.

I've irked some folks in the past when, on this blog, I've pointed out the Barksdale and Theatre IV connections of various theatre artists working at other stage companies. I've been accused of adopting an inappropriately paternal attitude when I say I'm proud of theatre artists, in a familial way, when they're working for someone else or for themselves. I'll probably irk someone again now. I'm sorry.

There were two things that moved me deeply tonight at Ragtime.

1. When Desiree Roots Centeio’s wide-eyed young son toddled onstage during the stirring conclusion, portraying Coalhouse and Sarah’s surviving son, while all 55 members of the cast joined in a rousing reprise of Wheels of a Dream, I was swept away by the overpowering realization that Barack Obama was at that very moment concluding his second debate, taking him one step closer to becoming President of the United States. The Wheels of a Dream indeed. I thought it was very moving.

2. When I looked up onto the stage, and into the audience, and throughout the lobby, and across to the various backstage tech positions, and saw face after familiar face, with the great majority of faces coming from the ranks of people I’ve worked with time and time again, all turning out to support Chase and Peggy and Richmond theatre itself, I was intensely proud of our theatre community in general and the Barksdale and Theatre IV family in particular.

I don't know why, but I’ve always had a strong sense of being a small part of a far greater whole. When I began my career at the feet of my teachers Bernard Schutte, Marian Waymack and Jack Welsh, and my more senior colleagues Buddy and Betty Callahan, Pete and Nancy Kilgore, and Muriel McAuley, I greatly appreciated the opportunity to learn from them and work to earn their friendship and respect. I hope my playbill bios over the decades have reflected this. Now I find myself on the other end, having the opportunity to learn from younger colleagues who are charting new paths and working together to achieve great things.

Actors, directors, designers, musicians, stage managers, technicians, house managers, contributors, subscribers and staff members with strong Barksdale and Theatre IV connections turned out in droves tonight to support Stage 1. These same artists and enthusiasts proudly support and work with many other nonprofit theatres in town as well. I think this spirit of cooperation and support for the Richmond theatre community in toto is something relatively new. It has not always been like that, and in some quarters, it's not like that today. It was great to see.

My friends did a beautiful job this evening, and they should be thrilled. It was especially gratifying to see Jerold Solomon take time off from his Broadway gig in South Pacific to return to Richmond for this benefit concert. He and Desi brought down the house more than once, ably assisted by Katrinah Lewis. Jan Guarino's "wheeee's" accompanied by that unforgetable Haynes smile were a hoot and a half. The incomparable Debra Wagoner amped up the power grid and stopped the show on Back to Before. The remarkable Eric Pastore showed once again how much old timers like Chase Kniffen have to look forward to from the next generation. And Tom McGranahan was younger than springtime as a feisty and lovable codger of a grandfather.

Richard Koch, Michael Hawke, Chris Stewart, James Opher, Lillie Izo, Brett Ambler, Joe Thibodeau, Mark Persinger and Robyn O'Neill ably added to the momentous achievement. And music director Sherri Matthews and her 17-member band of renown gave Richmonders a rare sense of a true Broadway sound.

The evening was a tribute to Richmond theatre in general, and testament to the talent, commitment and can-do leadership that Chase and Peggy are bringing to their new venture. I can’t wait to see each of the shows in Stage 1’s great new season.

I hope to see you at the theatre—be it one of ours or someone else’s.

--Bruce Miller

The McAuley-Kilgore Memorial Library

Posted by Bruce Miller

Under the exemplary leadership of John Glenn, Barksdale Theatre moved from Hanover Tavern to its new digs at Willow Lawn in 1996. The plan at the time was to create a theatre library in honor of our founders, Nancy and Pete Kilgore and Muriel McAuley (pictured above, left to right). A tasteful room was built off the southern end of the lobby, and the words “McAuley-Kilgore Memorial Library” were emblazoned over the elegant French entry doors in letters of gold.
Predictably, the renovation that transformed the former second floor warehouse area into the intimate and comfortable theatrical setting we enjoy today required a larger investment of time and money than originally planned. And so the construction of permanently installed bookshelves in the “Library” was postponed until such time as resources became available for their design and assembly.

One thing led to another, and now, in 2008, we still have yet to transform our “Library” into a library.

Countless boxes of scripts, theatrical texts, showbiz biographies and original cast albums remain in storage, waiting for over a decade for their promised homeland. The collection of tomes has grown over the years as loyal Barksdalians have contributed their home libraries to our long anticipated public “Library.”

In the interim, a private theatre library was started at VCU in memory of the great director and theatre prof Ken Campbell. More recently, in association with RAPT, David Sennett has generously launched an internet-connected lending library from his home.

But the McAuley-Kilgore Library, when it finally comes to pass, will still fill an important void. When the general public wants to walk into a room and peruse shelves filled with theatrical scripts and reference works, there’s still no place in Central Virginia for them to go. For all their many strengths, our local public libraries are woefully short on scripts. Many a professional and amateur actor and/or theatrical student has searched for even a well-known play only to learn that a well stocked, “open to the public” theatrical library still doesn’t exist in Greater Richmond.

Until that day when the McAuley-Kilgore Library finally opens to meet at least part of that need, our “Library” is being put to good use. The Richmond Playwrights Forum has been meeting there on a monthly basis for years. Theatre IV’s Board of Directors and Barksdale’s Board of Trustees call the “Library” home for the lion's share of their Board and committee meetings. Countless production meetings have been held there, not only for shows at Willow Lawn, but also for shows at the Tavern and the Empire. Small armies of students and children have gathered around the table engaged in seminars and summer camp experiences.
Most tastefully of all, the “Library” has welcomed a cornucopia of buffets and party spreads in service to an endless parade of cast soirees and group outings.

Hopefully, the longed for end will soon be in sight. David Powers, our Technical Director at Hanover Tavern and carpenter extraordinaire, has designed and priced the shelves, and this year we will be in the process of raising $12,000 in capital funds to refurbish and install the inner workings that will one day allow our “Library” to live up to its name. If you or any of your associates would like to help with this fundraising effort, please email Emily Cole. If you would like to donate books and/or recordings of a theatrical nature, please contact Brad Tuggle at the same address.

Our goal is to refinish the handsome conference table and chairs donated by the Markel Corporation in 1996, enabling us to continue to use the “Library” for all of the multi-purposes that have emerged over the last 12 years. We also plan to continue to display the historic portraits of Pete, Nancy, Muriel and Pat Carroll. Surrounding these practical and cherished features, we’ll one day have a fine collection of theatrical reading and listening materials to meet our community's need.

Muriel, Pete and Nancy (especially Muriel) had the greatest reverence for books. One day soon, we’ll all be able to enjoy and benefit from the Library built in their name, with the greatest reverence for their memories, and all they meant to Central Virginia.

--Bruce Miller

Oh Christmas Tree! Oh Christmas Tree! Look!! The Show I Did in '63!!!

Posted by John Steils

The good men and women of Barksdale’s Bifocals Theatre Project—our dynamic initiative for senior theatre artists and audiences—are launching a new program. During the next several months, they will be working independently and with Barksdale’s artisans to create handcrafted Christmas tree ornaments to represent each of the approximately 300 mainstage shows that Barksdale has produced since its founding as Richmond’s first professional performing arts organization in 1953.

Simultaneously, we will all begin creating ornaments for each of the mainstage productions at Theatre IV and the Virginia Museum Theatre / TheatreVirginia, the two other great stage companies whose resources and energies contribute so much to make Barksdale the powerhouse it is today.

Eventually, all these ornaments will be hung each year on the festive trees located in the lobbies of our Willow Lawn, Hanover Tavern, and historic Empire performance facilities. Christmas and Hanukkah are an ideal time to remember and celebrate all the great professional productions that have made Richmond the theatrical capital of the region. Who knows, maybe other theatres will join in the project to create memory trees of their own.

During my three months at Barksdale, I’ve had the privilege to meet and talk with many of the hundreds of theatre artists, Board leaders etc. who make up this landmark institution. Kevin Kilgore, Jacqui O’Connor, Essie Simms (she’s seen every B’dale production since 1953!) and many, many others have shared stories of the Tavern that have made the historic Barksdale come alive for me. Ford Flannagan, Gordon Bass, Terrie Powers and their pals have related stories that go back to Theatre IV’s founding in 1975, allowing me feel like I was in those touring vans myself. Did Jan Guarino really learn the entire score to Jubilee! while riding in the van on the way to a Newport News performance?

Sue Griffin, Meredith Stanley Scott (pictured with husband Alfred in the '70s to the left), Bob Albertia and dozens of others have shared their tales of VMT / TVA, keeping that company very much alive in the hallways, dressing rooms and rehearsal halls of Barksdale. Did you know that six of our current staff members, scores of our talented theatre artists, even our artistic director are all VMT / TVA vets? Shoot, the evening gown that Jan Guarino wears nightly in Swingtime Canteen was first created for and worn in Bubbling Brown Sugar at TheatreVirginia, and Jan herself starred in countless TheatreVirginia productions (in between those notorious van rides at Theatre IV).

You generous people in Richmond’s vibrant theatre community have had the good sense to combine and unite your passions to create a current company that thrives on all the strengths of the various companies that preceded it. That’s a pretty amazing achievement, and I don’t think there are many theatre communities that could pull it off. Pete, Nancy and Muriel (and Leslie Cheek, Robert Telford et al) must have been amazing people to have created the family you have become. Now, the three memory trees you are creating will represent their and your star-studded history in all its glory. You have my undying admiration.

Sadly, sort of, for me, this is my last blog entry. I came to Richmond at the end of September to be with my sister, who was seriously ill. The wonderful news is that she is now SO much better and I am able to return home. While I was here, Barksdale was kind enough to welcome me into the fold, and give this theatrical fish-out-of-water a temporary home. My part-time internship with the marketing department has been a lifeline for me during a somewhat stressful time, and I can’t thank you all enough.

So Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah! I will miss you all, and I thank you for being the most amazing theatre I’ve ever had the privilege to know. Long may you thrive!

--John Steils

Taking Stock, Giving Thanks

Posted by Bruce Miller and Phil Whiteway

Thanksgiving is one of our favorite holidays. All of us at Barksdale Theatre and Theatre IV have many reasons to be thankful.

We are thankful for:

the legacy of hard work, unflappable commitment and uncompromising artistic passion that is our birthright, a gift beyond measure that has been passed on to us by Pete and Nancy Kilgore and Muriel McAuley

a family of theatre artists whose number and talents belie the size of our community, who constantly challenge us to lead and to serve

an intelligent, energized audience that bucks all national trends and continues to grow year after year—an audience that celebrates our successes and pardons our turkeys—an audience that encourages us to risk failure and expects us to do our best

a large and vigilant staff that works selflessly and creatively behind the scenes to generate the energy needed to sustain a major institution (unless you’ve seen them work their magic first hand, you probably have no idea)

financial contributors who believe in the necessity of what we do and are willing to put their money where their hearts are—corporate and foundation donors who understand that it is only through their support that nonprofit arts organizations can work to ensure that everyone has a seat at the table (or at least in the theatre)

trustees who provide the expertise we need to provide ongoing and effective management, who serve as our eyes and ears in the community, who take personal responsibility for the care and feeding of our mission, and who form a bulwark that protects us when times get tough

volunteers who contribute that most precious commodity—time, and who lend encouragement with an unwavering smile

the Virginia Commission for the Arts, under the exemplary leadership of Peggy Baggett (pictured to the right), always caring, always communicating, always holding us to the highest standards

institutional partners like Greater Richmond’s many senior centers and retirement living facilities (Barksdale’s Bifocals Theatre Project); the Hanover Tavern Foundation (our Country Playhouse Season at Hanover Tavern); James River Writers and the READ Center (Virginia Arts & Letters Live); the Latin Ballet of Virginia (Latino Theatre Project); Prevent Child Abuse Virginia and the Virginia Dept of Social Services (Hugs and Kisses); Second Presbyterian Church (the Acts of Faith Festival); Bon Air Presbyterian, Forest Hill Presbyterian and Tabernacle Baptist (rehearsal space); and the Steward School (our summer High School All Star Musical)—all of which help us build capacity to better meet the needs of our community

esteemed colleagues at the African American Repertory Theatre, the Carpenter Science Theatre, the Chamberlayne Actors Theatre, the Firehouse Theatre Project, the Henley Street Theatre, the Richmond Ballet, the Richmond Shakespeare Theatre, the Richmond Symphony, the Richmond Triangle Players, Swift Creek Mill Theatre, Sycamore Rouge, the Virginia Opera Association and many other nonprofit performing arts organizations who help to create the critical mass that keeps all of us afloat

thriving university theatre programs at Randolph Macon, the University of Richmond and Virginia Commonwealth University—their faculty expertise and student talent adds to the lifeblood of our theatre

remarkable youth training programs including the Christian Youth Theatre, HATTheatre, SPARC and many others—enabling children to engage in the arts both as participants and appreciators

and most importantly, the hundreds of thousands of individuals who go nameless here, who buy the tickets, book the tours, assemble the groups, make the contributions, and simply do their part each year to ensure the success of Barksdale Theatre and Theatre IV.

Thank you. We couldn’t do it without you.

Have a blessed and peaceful Thanksgiving.

--Bruce Miller and Phil Whiteway

Why Do These People Look So Tired?

Posted by Bruce Miller

Well, all right. Scotty, Debra and Joe don’t look so tired. It’s just me.

In the old days, the Barksdale tradition for tech Sundays was for Muriel to make a huge pot of her spaghetti (with green olives, of course) to serve to the cast and crew between the afternoon and evening rehearsals.

Even though we finally arrived at a respectable recreation of Muriel’s beloved meat sauce (minus the cigarette ash that she always claimed to be the secret ingredient), we gave up trying to make the sauce itself in 2002. After two years of cooking at home and hauling the spaghetti fixins to the theatre in giant tubs, we decided enough was enough. If you want to re-experience Muriel’s magnificent abbondanza, you will find the recipe in Erin Thomas’s upcoming theatre cookbook.

Since 2002, we have made our lives easier. We now walk across the Willow Lawn parking lot and enjoy our delicious and moderately priced tech dinner at The Crazy Greek, where the flaming saganaki has become as legendary as Muriel’s spaghetti—well, almost. Our kindly restaurateur friends push several tables together and we all have a grand old time.

The photo shown above and to the right was taken just before the tech dinner for Moonlight and Magnolias. We are standing in front of The Crazy Greek and across the street from El Toro Loco at the Intersection of Insane Eateries. Debra and I are the interlopers. We heard “free meal” and we were there, rushing over from the Tavern after our Sunday matinee of Swingtime Canteen, which opened last week.

To confess, the rushing and the late hours have finally gotten the best of me. After several 100+ hour work weeks in a row, I’ve finally lost it.

Yesterday, I started the day with staff meeting at 9:15, then planned some improvements to the Swingtime sound system, then went to the JCC to seek their guidance on the proper Hanukkah display for the Barksdale lobby, and then sought out and purchased the appropriate electric Menorah (we can’t have lit candles) and other Judaica that we had decided upon. Do you know how hard it is to find a blue tablecloth in Richmond?

I met with Jackie Gann about how to best credit Gino’s Italian Restaurant as our “Doughnut Sponsor” for Swingtime. I checked in on Judi Crenshaw and John Wiley as they set up the amazing Gone with the Wind gallery exhibit in the Barksdale lobby. I received a fund development update from Phil, who had just completed a very successful day raising money. I planned my next moves on two major fee-for-service grant programs that we have in development.

At 4:30, we began a Theatre IV Board meeting (with record attendance, I’m proud to say) and I left the theatre at 6:30 feeling like I’d put in a full day’s work. I made it home by 6:45, and immediately left with Terrie to go to my son’s orchestra concert—he had a solo on the double bass.

Just as we were sitting down at 7 and the curtain was rising, Terrie’s cell phone rang. Mine was on the fritz. It was Ginnie Willard, reminding me that I was supposed to be, at that very moment, directing auditions for The Little Dog Laughed from 7 until 10. So out of the middle school auditorium I ran, and made it back to the Empire by 7:30, where I apologized profusely to the waiting auditionees.

Thankfully, Corey Davis and Jason Campbell had filled in ably in my stead.

How can you really explain being brain dead because you’ve just come out of four weeks of working 15/7 directing Swingtime Canteen while trying to juggle a hundred other responsibilities. You can't. It comes off as whining. Shoot, I’m whining now.

So, why do I look so tired in the photo? And why did I forget about my own auditions—which is about as stupid as you can get? Who knows? To quote my least favorite thing that is said to me with regularity when folks find out I’m employed by a theatre: “It must be nice not to have to work for a living.”

--Bruce Miller

Three Theatres - Three Times the Fun

Posted by John Steils

I'm just getting used to my new Barksdale and Theatre IV home. Or I guess I should say "homes." I arrived in September after a year-long internship with a single-theatre company in the mid-West, and I was glad to discover that I now had three theatres to explore.

My first exposure was to the historic Empire and it was love at first sight. What a magnificent performance facility. One step inside the door and you feel like you're in a Broadway house that's been transported to Broad Street. As Virginia's oldest theatre, the Empire is one of Richmond's greatest treasures. I loved Stuart Little (I've never seen an actor and puppet become "one" more than David Janeski and young Stuart), and I can't wait for A Christmas Story, Rumpelstiltskin's Daughter, Peter Pan and Guys and Dolls!

I'm reading all the hoopla in the Times-Dispatch about restoring the Carpenter Center. I won't pretend to understand it all, but apparently it's been a crazy ride. That makes me all the more impressed that throughout the last 20 years Theatre IV has owned, restored and maintained the landmark Empire without, I'm told, so much as a paragraph of controversy.

As much as the Empire is a treasure, Barksdale's Willow Lawn home is a jewel. Tom McGranahan--a treasure himself--told me that he used to work in that exact area when he was a Procter & Gamble sales rep and the vast second-floor space that is now an attractive theatre was then a storeroom for the five-and-dime.

The Barksdalians (Barksdalers?) who were responsible for the design and execution of this transformation did an amazing job. I went to see The Member of the Wedding and couldn't have loved it more. It's a perfect, intimate theatre. From the outside, you think it's going to be this tiny shoebox of a space. But then you go up the stairs and enter this huge lobby and fully equipped 204-seat theatre. It's an ideal home for those of us who like to see every expression and hear every word.

I was picking up some fliers from the development office two days ago, and walked into the theatre expecting to revisit the beautiful set for The Member of the Wedding. Instead, it was like entering a jungle. Bruce Rennie, Matt Landwehr, Derek Dumais and Joe Bock were in the middle of the new light hang for Moonlight and Magnolias, and they had disconnected all the lights so that they could re-position and re-connect them to match Lynne Hartman's light design for M & M. Light cables--I think they called them "pigtails"--were dangling down from hundreds of unconnected instruments, making it seem like a small battalion of carnivorous vines (or snakes, being the day before Halloween) was getting ready to attack from the ceiling above the stage.

My first visit to Hanover Tavern was for Deathtrap, so I think I'll always be a little frightened if I have to go out there by myself. When the lighting flashed at the end of Act II, revealing that freaky cigar store Indian that stood at the foot of the stairs, I thought I was seeing a ghost. Jeannie Kilgore told me that Muriel used to swear there was a ghost in the Tavern. Now that Halloween has come and gone, I'll be brave enough to find out more.

If you haven't purchased your tickets yet for A Christmas Story at the Empire (you remember that movie with the leg lamp?), Moonlight and Magnolias at Willow Lawn (a hilarious backstage story about the making of Gone with the Wind), or Swingtime Canteen at the Tavern (a recreation of an actual USO show from the early 40s), please call today.

Whichever show and whichever theatre you choose, you're sure to have a great time! And you'll be doing your part to keep professional theatre in Richmond alive and well.

--John Steils

Femme Fatale / Femme Fantastique

Posted by Bruce Miller

As we prepare to open The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers, the latest production in Barksdale’s ongoing Women’s Theatre Project, I’m revisiting the four remarkable women playwrights whose work made it onto the Barksdale stage between 1953 and 1962. Last week I profiled Nancy Mitford (see Barksdale’s First Woman Playwright – Nancy Mitford, Sept. 6). This week, I introduce to you a second woman author who is now remembered as a feminist pulp fiction pioneer and the author of the glitzy showbiz story of Cole Porter’s final musical for film or stage.

VERA CASPARY (1899 – 1987)

It took help from my pal Jackie Jones and the Boston Public Library to find the handsome photo of Vera Caspary that is pictured to the right. And then it cost me $20! But it's worth it to know that Ms Caspary will now show up on Google Images for the first time because of this blog.

Unlike Diana Mitford, Vera Caspary wasn’t famously wealthy, glamorous or socially connected. Yet she danced around the edges of some of the more important events and celebrated people of her time, and emerged as one of the most progressive and successful woman authors of the 20th Century.

Vera Caspary was born in Chicago in 1899. She grew up in a middle class neighborhood next door to Ferdinand Barnett, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, and their four children. Mr. Barnett was a lawyer and the founder of Chicago’s first black newspaper. Ms Wells-Barnett (pictured to the left) was a nationally prominent journalist and anti-lynching activist.

A former slave, Ms Wells-Barnett was sought out as an impassioned speaker for civil rights, both in the United States and abroad. She founded the first African American suffragist organization, and was a founding member of the “Committee of 40,” a group of national activists that evolved into the NAACP. Within two years of joining she left the Committee because she felt they were not revolutionary enough.

Vera Caspary was completely taken with her next door neighbors and their progressive politics. At the age of 17, Ms Caspary left high school, took a secretarial course and began earning her living writing advertising copy. She soon felt unfulfilled by this position, and turned her attentions to writing fiction addressing serious social themes.

Her first novel, The White Girl, concerned a black woman from the South who tries to pass for white when she moves north. Her second novel, Thicker than Water, focused on a Jewish family from Chicago. Her first play, Blind Mice, told the story of Chicago’s young working women who lived together in Rolfe House, the low income residence where she herself resided. Blind Mice was not commercially successful, but it took Ms Caspary to Broadway just as she was entering her 30s.

Paramount optioned Blind Mice, reset it in New York City, and filmed it as Working Girl in 1931. (A still from the film is pictured to the right.) Clearly ahead of its time, Working Girl is a subversively funny film laced with an ironic view of marriage, work and class. Film scholar Judith Mayne calls it "perhaps the most daring and innovative film Arzner (the film's acclaimed woman director) ever made." Using this as her calling card to Hollywood, Ms Caspary next wrote the story and the screenplay for The Night of June 13th, a romantic murder mystery of sorts that became her first real commercial success.

In many of her books, especially those from the late '30s, Ms Caspary's heroines were career women, or women attempting to juggle romance and independence, very similar to her own situation. In 1943, Ms Caspary’s career took a giant leap forward when she wrote the novel Laura, which was licensed by 20th Century Fox and turned into a movie by producer and director Otto Preminger. Laura marked a return to the hard-boiled romantic mystery genre of her first success. The novel and the movie were so popular that Ms Caspary soon thereafter co-authored with George Sklar a stage version for Broadway. The play was a hit in both New York and London. It was this stage version of Laura that was produced by Barksdale in 1958, starring Burt Edwards, Bernard Schutte, Jay Lundy, Pete Kilgore, Helen Jervey and Muriel McAuley.

Laura had several elements that seemed to come from Ms Caspary's life. The heroine, Laura Hunt, works as a secretary at an advertising agency, but has some daring and ambition. With some unexpected help from columnist Waldo Lydecker (played by Clifton Webb in the film, pictured in the bathtub above and to the right), she becomes a top executive. At the same time, Laura is forced to balance her professional and personal life, a situation with potentially lethal consequences. In the 1940s and still today, the character of Laura was and is the "quintessential femme fatale."

Shortly after the success of Laura, Ms Caspary co-authored the screen adaptation of her hard-hitting feminist crime novel, Bedelia, which was filmed by John Corfield and Isadore Goldsmith, an Austrian-born producer who became Ms Caspary's husband. Bedelia is considered by many to be the original "black widow" crime story. In 1948, she wrote the screenplay for Joseph L. Mankiewicz's movie, A Letter to Three Wives, which was another huge hit for the studio.

In 1950, the right-wing journal Counterattack issued a pamphlet-style book called Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television. Because of her commitment to Ida B. Wells-Barnett and the early civil rights movement, her authorship of several plays and novels dealing progressively with women’s and other social issues, and her marriage to a left-leaning Austrian who left his homeland to oppose the Nazis, Ms Caspary was included among the 151 actors, writers and other arts professionals identified in Red Channels as communist sympathizers. No evidence against her was ever asked for or collected, nonetheless, being named in Red Channels effectively placed Ms Caspary on the Hollywood blacklist.

During the years of the blacklist, she continued to write crime novels with strong women at their center. She also wrote a story about three gorgeous showgirls and the man who connected them with each other.

In the late 50s, Gene Kelly expressed interest in making a movie musical based on this story. Cole Porter (pictured to the left) was asked to write the score. This was to be Cole Porter’s last musical for film or stage. (He wrote Aladdin for television one year later.) The musical film was called Les Girls, or Cole Porter’s Les Girls in the United States. It included the Porter standard, Ca C’est L’Amour. This was the haunting love song that, decades later, Muriel, Randy Strawderman and Jim Bianchi picked for Bricktop to sing to Cole in Act II of Red Hot and Cole.

Today, Ms Caspary’s hard-boiled and yet romantic crime novels (such as Laura and Bedelia) are still in print and selling better than ever. New generations grant these classics considerable acclaim as early examples of feminist pulp fiction. Their paperback covers today (see Bedelia to the right) are reminiscent of 1940s Sam Spade. Also, the Academy Award-winning Les Girls was recently released on DVD as an example of the final years of MGM’s reign as the world's foremost producer of entertaining musicals. Outshining Gene Kelly, the real stars are the film's three leading femmes fantastique: Mitzi Gaynor, Taina Elg and Kay Kendall.

We will be selling these works of Vera Caspary along with the works of our other featured women authors in the lobby throughout the run of The Member of the Wedding. Her classic works are as fresh today as they were in the 40s, and are well worth your consideration.

--Bruce Miller

My Dinner with Bob Porterfield

Posted by Bruce Miller

In the winter of 1968, about six months after Barksdale’s Stop the World residency at Barter (see Barksdale and Barter, Aug 28), and about four months before my high school graduation, I was invited to dinner with Robert Porterfield--"please call me Bob"--Barter’s legendary founder. Here's a photo of Bob (taken about a quarter-century earlier) with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.

This was nothing like my mealtime encounter with Arthur Miller (see My Lunch with Arthur Miller, Aug 12), where I sat respectfully and anonymously at his elbow with neither one of us saying a word. This was an animated three-hour dinner conversation with only four of us in the room.

A little background... In high school, I met one of my lifelong friends, Terry Bliss (pictured to the left). She’s co-author with me of Hugs and Kisses, and she works today as a practicing attorney and Artistic Director of North Street Playhouse in Onancock, VA. I was also good friends with Terry’s younger sister, Kathy. Through Terry and Kathy, I became friends with their mother, also named Terry Bliss. Terry Bliss (the mother) was the director of PAVE (Performing Arts in Virginia Education) after it became independent of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and just before it morphed again into the Virginia Commission for the Arts.

Terry Bliss (the mother) is now named Terry Showalter, and doing great things in Harrisonburg, VA.

Terry Bliss (the mother) had met the late Mason Bliss (the father) while he was working as the booking agent for Barter Theatre after WWII. (Below and to the right, you can find a photo of the Barter touring bus from the post-war years, parked in front of the Algonquin Hotel in NYC.)

In 1946, Mason was trying to book a Barter touring production into Limestone College in Gaffney, South Carolina, where Terry headed the theatre department. He didn't win the booking, but apparently he won the heart of the drama chair. Six months after their first meeting, Mason and Terry were married in Abingdon. Southwest Virginia was “dry” in those days, so Ernest Borgnine (pictured to the right) drove to Tennessee to pick up the wedding champagne. Bob Porterfield was the Best Man. The happy couple moved into the Barter Inn, company housing for the theatre. It was in the Barter Inn that Terry Bliss (the daughter) was conceived and lived the first several months of her life.

Soon after his daughter’s birth, Mason Bliss needed to earn money. He established The House of Bliss Celebrity Bureau, Inc.—yes, that really was the name—and he moved his family to Richmond. From here he ran one of only three producing and nationally touring theatre operations to be located outside of New York or Los Angeles. Terry (the mother) was a respected local actress. (A photo of her on the cover of a Richmond Summer Theatre playbill appears above and to the left.) Each year The House of Bliss would produce touring productions starring the likes of Pernell Roberts, Dennis King, Sir Cedric Hardwicke and Hal Holbrook. Google ‘em if you’re too young to know who they are.

When Mason died in the mid-60s, the House of Bliss died with him. Terry (the mother) went on to direct the state agency PAVE, and it was her job to book arts programs into Virginia’s schools. She relied on her good friend Bob Porterfield and the artists from The House of Bliss to help her with her job.

In 1968, Bob Porterfield was coming to Richmond, and he called Terry Bliss (the mother) to invite himself over for an evening’s meal. She told him about her daughters’ friend (that would be me), a high school student who was, as Moss Hart famously said, "drunk" on “the smell of the theatre.” Bob was renowned for how much he enjoyed talking with students who wanted to go into theatre professionally. He encouraged her to include me in their get together.

Terry (the daughter) was off in college, so Terry (the mother), Kathy, Bob and I met for dinner in February, and the rest of my life was molded, at least in part, in that one funny, moving and passionate conversation.

Bob spoke enthusiastically about the founding of Barter, and about his good friends Pete and Nancy Kilgore and Muriel McAuley (who, at that time, I had yet to meet). He expressed how much he admired Barksdale, because they were going through so much of what he went through in Barter's early days. He professed that theatre was the noblest vocation anyone could accept, and convinced me that, should I decide to pursue such a career, it would be a privilege and an honor that I could not take lightly.

He discussed the work that he and others had done with President Kennedy to create the National Endowment for the Arts, which had finally been established by President Johnson only three years prior to our dinner. Bob passionately believed that encouraging and showcasing artistic excellence would rekindle America’s creative energy, enrich a national cultural landscape that he believed was in danger of stagnation, and engender in average Americans an understanding of what true civilization really meant.

He believed that, due to our nation’s emerging prosperity, we in the U. S. had inherited from Europe the responsibility of being the caretaker of Western culture. He was convinced that the best way to lure developing countries away from communism and toward democracy was through artistic expression, a tool that the Russians were funding at the time with unparalleled vigor.

Decades before the social economist Richard Florida began discussing the "creative class," Bob Porterfield (pictured in the pencil portrait to the left) discussed American business’s need for the creative education and inspiration that only an arts-rich environment can provide.

It was heady stuff. It changed my life.

Bob Porterfield, Pete and Nancy Kilgore, and Muriel McAuley were great leaders not only because of the institutions they founded and sustained, and certainly not only because of the plays they produced. They were great leaders because of the imaginations they ignited, the opportunities they provided, and the dreams they applauded, encouraged and embraced.

I am forever in their debt.

--Bruce Miller

Addendum: On the "Six Degrees" front, Bob Porterfield's secretary at Barter was Byrd Jervey. When Mason Bliss founded The House of Bliss, Byrd accepted a job as his secretary, moving with him back to Richmond so that she could be closer to her sister. Her sister was Helen Jervey, who was Muriel's first friend and office mate at AAA, and would subsequently become a legendary Barksdale All Star, beginning with Barksdale's first mainstage production, Gold in the Hills.